Synchronous
by devovitquesuasartes
Summary: Being kidnapped by an evil multinational corporation and forced to relive the memories of an ancestor you hate isn't exactly fun. To make matters worse, the Animus program is experiencing some strange glitches. Is Desmond really alone in there? 16x17
1. Chapter 1

**Introductory notes:**_ Quite a few people have asked me to write more about Clay and Desmond. I didn't particularly want to continue with the Thirty-Three/Mad To Live storyline because I felt it reached quite a nice conclusion, but I do like exploring the characters. So this is a slight AU in which Desmond and Clay are being held at Abstergo at the same time. I'm using a Let's Play of the first game as a guide, mainly because I don't think I could stand to run away from any more bloody beggar women._

* * *

Desmond Miles stepped out of the side entrance to Bad Weather and into the twelve square feet of gravel that constituted its smoking area and garbage bay combined. The bar's name turned out to be unfortunately apt for the evening; the rain was coming down in sheets and Desmond knew that it would take all of his reflexes to light a cigarette and smoke it in under three minutes without the weather putting an end to his one vice. He pulled his hood up and used it for shelter as he flipped a cigarette between his lips, struck a match off a dry patch on the wall and brought the two together as quickly as possible.

Not fast enough.

The match fizzled as a stray raindrop cut its life short prematurely.

"Fuck me," Desmond cursed under his breath. "Could this night get any worse?"

There was movement behind him. He smelt the chloroform too late and got the answer to his question.

* * *

Desmond had been holed up in the clinical white room for over two days before he finally gave in and succumbed to sleep. As he had suspected, it turned out to be a mistake. He was awoken by the sharp stab of a needle in the crook of his elbow, and before he had even finished yelling out and sitting up he could already feel the sedative coursing through his veins. He caught a brief glimpse of blonde hair and the gentle pressure of a hand on his forehead as unconsciousness claimed him once again.

Lucy told him later that they preferred to introduce subjects to the Animus whilst under sedation. The process of adjusting to the virtual reality program was apparently streamlined when the subject was in a state of deep relaxation, since the brain accepted the initial images as a dream. The Animus then merged with the mind insidiously, so that by the time the brain noticed the difference, it was too late.

Desmond knew that it wasn't a dream. Even as he grew accustomed to the feel of a sword in his hand, and elbowed his way through crowds of whining beggars, he knew that there was something wrong. He looked down at his left hand, saw the missing finger, and felt anger boiling in his stomach. He dragged his mind out of the Animus kicking and screaming, so violently that the program became corrupted and was forced to reboot.

The Templar in charge of Desmond's "treatment" was a man called Warren Vidic, and Desmond despised him before he'd even heard his name. As the weeks went on, the very sound of his voice would become enough by itself to make Desmond want to punch things, and he began to project a grey beard and smug eyes onto the face of every guard he despatched whilst in the machine.

But then, Desmond hated Altaïr as well.

* * *

His first real encounter inside the body of his ancestor was to see, as through his own eyes, Altaïr murdering a helpless old man in cold blood. Desmond had seen a dead body before, but he had never killed anyone despite the years of Assassin training he had undergone.

It shouldn't have been like this. If the comparison weren't so horribly egregious, he might have said it was like losing his virginity through rape. For the first time Desmond drove the life out of someone's body, and he did so helplessly, with no control over his actions. The horror of it hurt him far deeper than he would ever let anyone know.

Then the bubbling of the man's blood was drowned out by a voice, a voice coming from his own mouth, boasting about the kill as though it were a point of pride. Desmond found himself powerless to stop himself speaking, even as he grew sickened and enraged by the words he was hearing. He remembered the name that Lucy had told him, before he'd been put back inside the Animus.

Altaïr Ibn-La 'Ahad.

"My way is better," Altaïr sneered through Desmond's mouth, and Desmond hated him.

But he played the game anyhow, in the hope that when he reached that final memory the Templars might ... well. Not let him go. Desmond wasn't that naïve. But he hoped, at least, that they would release him from this entrapment inside Altaïr, and let him explore a different, less scummy ancient relative. So he leapt over the beams with catlike grace and instinct, and crouched at the lip of a ledge staring with genuine awe at the Arc of the Covenant. It was an awe that, of course, his ancestor didn't share.

"Don't be silly. There's no such thing. It's just a story," Altaïr scoffed. Desmond wondered if punching himself in the face would cause him to become desynchronised.

"Then what is it?" That was one of Altaïr's companions, a man named Malik Al-Sayf. Desmond liked Malik, though it was a strange affection, since all of Malik's contempt was directed at Altaïr and therefore also at Desmond himself.

Altaïr dismissed Malik's warnings and turned to climb down the ladder to confront Robert de Sable. That was when Desmond experienced the first of the glitches.

He reached the ladder. Behind him, he heard Malik mutter in clear English: "Your funeral, asshole."

Desmond spun Altaïr's head round and stared at Malik. The man was looking back at him with despair and anger, but didn't speak again.

Desmond must have stared at him for a full thirty seconds before he began to feel the pressure of desynchronisation like a weight on the back of his neck. Reluctantly, he descended the ladder to begin the confrontation with Robert.

He quickly got his ass kicked, and the resulting mix of shame and satisfaction was somewhat unsettling. Satisfaction won out, though, and Desmond settled in to enjoy the sight of Altaïr fleeing with his tail between his legs.

Just as he reached the cave entrance and saw daylight, however, he found his mind gently detaching from the Animus and before he knew it the HUD was sliding back to reveal Warren Vidic with a face like thunder.

Lucy was trying to placate him. "Warren, it might just have been a glitch..."

"Glitch my _ass_. I knew we should have taken the precaution of..." He paused, glancing at Desmond as if he only just remembered he was there.

Desmond decided to play dumb. "What glitch? What are you talking about?" he asked, arranging his face into a shape he hoped resembled confusion.

Vidic stared back at him suspiciously. Desmond looked away from him and at Lucy, who was also frowning.

"Desmond, did you notice anything strange while you were in the Animus? Any problems?"

"You mean aside from Altaïr's major personality defects?"

Lucy smiled at him, and seemed to relax. "Nothing aside from that? Must have just been an equipment fault. You ready to go back in?"

"Do I get a choice?"

"Nope." The guilt in her smile betrayed the humour she tried to inject into the word.

"Then let's go back in."


	2. Chapter 2

_You might notice in this chapter that I took some liberties with the chronology of the game, specifically with the order in which Altaïr visits the cities. As you probably remember, Altaïr goes to Damascus first, then to Jerusalem and Acre afterwards. I'm changing it up because this is not going to be a novelisation of the first game, but an AU, and I thought you'd prefer it if I got to the heart of the story first instead of faffing about on top of rooftops for 20 chapters._

_Not that I have anything against faffing about. Power to the faff._

* * *

Desmond lay staring silently at the ceiling, contemplating his first Animus session. Maybe it was just a case of the translation software being unusually clever. Maybe Malik simply said, "Your actions will bring death upon you as surely as the gazelle who strays too close to the edge of crocodile-filled waters, you son of a thousand soiled dung beetles," and the Animus had given Desmond a condensed version. But if that were all that had happened, Vidic and Lucy wouldn't have freaked out about it.

That was the only time it had happened. Desmond had sat through the rest of the session and for a brief, happy moment believed that Al Mualim had really killed Altaïr, and that his time reliving the life of this particular ancestor was over. Then he remembered the long line of DNA strands that were left to unravel still, and realised that somehow Altaïr must have survived the stabbing. His next thought was to wonder whether getting stabbed up a bit might teach Altaïr some humility.

That was a hope he'd have to hold onto. He remembered the ominous warning that tomorrow would be "a long day", and something told him that being let off with only a couple of hours inside the Animus was not going to be a common occurrence.

With that in mind, he stripped off his jeans and hoody and settled down under the clean white sheets, grateful that the Templars hadn't decided to simply throw him into a dungeon between sessions. Desmond tried to focus on the reasons he did want to use the machine again. He was interested to see how Altaïr had survived, and to find out how else Al Mualim planned to punish him. He wanted to see how the story, such as it was, ended. Above all, he wanted to find out more about Malik Al-Sayf. Even if it meant being called an asshole again.

* * *

A few years ago Tony, the owner of the bar Desmond had worked out, had thrown a birthday party for himself and accidentally invited both of the women he happened to be dating at the time. Despite Tony's best efforts, his girlfriends had entered into a conversation and quickly realised that they'd been played for fools. Long story short, Desmond had ended up getting peripherally involved in the ensuing bar fight; a man had waved a beer bottle with the intention of breaking it in half against the bar to create a weapon. He managed to do so quite successfully, but unfortunately Desmond's face had interceded between the bottle and the bar at precisely the wrong moment. Already pretty drunk at this point, Desmond had decided to cut his losses and had stolen a full bottle of vodka from the bar before crawling away home with one hand clutching a bar towel to the bleeding wreck of his face. When he got back, he alternated between using the alcohol to disinfect the wound and doing shots of vodka to dull the pain of the disinfection.

Desmond had woken up the next morning, his face stuck to the bathroom floor with a combination of blood and vomit, and no painkillers in the house. At the time, he had been certain that there was no worse possible way to wake up.

That was until he opened his eyes to the sight of Warren Vidic looming over him with a predatory grin.

He made an off-hand joke about Vidic watching him sleep, and got the response: "We're always watching you."

How fucking jolly. Desmond made a mental note to get changed under the sheets from now on.

He noticed that the dirty clothes from yesterday had been replaced by an identical clean set, which were folded neatly at the end of the bed. Great. They'd probably had maids delivering laundry while he was asleep as well. Maybe they just marched tour groups through his bedroom during the night.

* * *

Desmond only half-listened to Al Mualim's scolding of Altaïr. Much as he would normally have enjoyed it, he was too busy wondering what had happened to Malik. The last time he'd seen him, the man had been sporting a gruesome injury to his arm, and Desmond knew that medical treatment in the twelth century was none too advanced, and that it wasn't unheard of for flesh wounds to carry people off through infection. Perhaps he was getting a little too obsessed with Malik's comment in the cave, but anything that could upset Warren Vidic was of serious interest to Desmond.

Luckily, while he was wandering around Masyaf on his first mission, he overheard a conversation between two Assassins. They spoke of Malik's assignation to the post of Bureau leader in Jerusalem, and so when Altaïr was set the task of carrying out three assassinations, it was to Jerusalem that Desmond headed first.

He'd never ridden a horse before in "real life", so it was strange to have the feel of it come so naturally to him. He paused by an old church, leaving his horse next to a cart full of hay, and used another set of unfamiliar skills to clamber up the site of the slightly crumbling structure. Crouching on top of the spire, staring out over the lush, green landscape with the occasional white blobs that were either guardsmen or peasants, it hit him for the first time.

Afterwards he would wonder why it took so long.

Desmond Miles, bartender and runaway, born in South Dakota in 1987, was sitting on top of a church looking out over the landscape of twelth century Israel.

An extremely unmanly giggle rose in his throat, and turned into an uncontrollable fit of laughter so strong that it knocked him off his perch and sent him crashing unceremoniously to the ground 50 feet below, where he promptly desynchronised and was forced to resume the memory from several miles back along the road.

The journey to Jerusalem was long, but Desmond enjoyed every moment of it. According to Lucy's notes, Altaïr had made a habit of tearing down King Richard's flags whenever he saw them, so that was something Desmond stopped to do frequently. It was as much for the petty joy of the vandalism as it was born from his desire to become better synchronised with his ancestor.

* * *

Malik Al-Sayf was staring at him contemptuously across the counter. Desmond looked back, searching the other man's eyes for a hint of what he had experienced during the first session. He was getting desperate; while he knew the passage of time was different enough in the Animus to allow him to make a days-long journey in under a few hours "real time", they had to be getting close to the end of the day and he had no idea when Lucy would decide to end the session. Now that he was finally here, he was determined to get to the bottom of the glitch he had experienced.

There was nothing particularly mysterious about Malik. He hated Altaïr, and in that respect he and Desmond had a lot in common, but there nothing in his manner, appearance or speech gave any indication as to how or why he had come into knowledge of a 21st century phrase and insult.

Altaïr was at the Bureau to present information on a slaver called Talal. Desmond had a different mission. Now that he knew he could laugh through Altaïr, maybe he could speak as well.

"Safety and peace, Malik."

"Your presence here deprives me of both. What do you want?"

Desmond could feel Altaïr's response in the back of his throat, but he fought it back and, with great effort, forced his own words out.

"I ... want answers ... asshole."

Like a physical blow, Desmond's synchronisation level dropped a few bars.

Malik gave no indication that he had heard. He stood expectantly, as if the memory of him had been put on standby until Desmond gave the correct response.

They stood like that for a long time, Desmond choking back the words that Altaïr had spoken despite the threat to the stability of the memory. He began to think that he was chasing shadows with this line of questioning when Malik spoke again, his voice oddly stilted.

"Who are you?"

Desmond felt a thrill of triumph. Annoyed he might be, but that was not something that Malik would have asked Altaïr. Knowing that he didn't have long before he dropped out of the memory altogether, he decided to focus on getting answers rather than giving them.

"Who are ... you?" he asked. Red clouded the edges of his vision and small fracture lines began to appear in his vision.

Malik was still frozen in place, but Desmond watched his lips move as the man struggled out two more words. "Subject ... Sixteen."

_Of course._

Then Altaïr was saying, "Al Mualim has asked..." and Malik was interrupting, as if their conversation had never slowed. Desmond felt himself begin to synch correctly with the memory again, but it didn't matter. He knew now. He _knew_.


	3. Chapter 3

"I've spoken to Dr Chevko. We'll move Sixteen to night sessions and shorter hours, in case we need to keep Seventeen in the Animus for longer. That way we can be certain they'll never be in the program at the same time."

"You think that's necessary?"

"Don't question my decisions, Miss Stillman."

"I'm not questioning ... look, Warren. You saw how focused Desmond was today. He's powering through those DNA strands, showing genuine interest in becoming more synchronised with his ancestor. He knows that the more synchronous they become, the longer he'll be able to interact with Sixteen."

"How very behaviourist of you, Lucy. The point_ I _was making, was whether it's a good idea to allow them to interact."

"What harm could it do? If anything, this might help Sixteen..."

"Oh, not this again."

"You've read the reports. He's starting to deteriorate. He's stopped speaking to Chevko and the others. I've seen the security footage of him when he's alone and ... it's not good."

"Sixteen is no longer our priority. If he's becoming unproductive, then we may as well terminate his sessions."

"You mean terminate _him_."

"This sentiment is unbecoming, Miss Stillman."

"It's not sentiment, Warren! If these interactions are giving both of the subjects a heightened interest in the Animus program, then that means our productivity is going to increase. Treating them like prisoners, keeping them in isolation ... you've seen for yourself what that does to the test subjects. But if we let them work together..."

"So what are your recommendations.?"

"I ... Well. We should feign ignorance, let them think that their communications are slipping in under our radar. That way we'll learn far more about their current states of mind that any psych test could tell us."

"So be it. I'll inform Dr Chevko. Time to wake them up."

* * *

Desmond stumbled back into the Jerusalem Bureau. He'd taken an arrow to the stomach whilst tracking down Talal, and the injury was playing havoc with his synchronisation. Wincing, he pulled the arrowhead out with his fingertips and dropped the offending item to the ground, where it promptly dissipated as the memory repaired itself.

Malik greeted him with sarcasm, of course, followed by a reprimand. Desmond had been slightly worried that he might desynch because of how clumsily the assassination had been executed; he'd chased Talal halfway across the city before finally getting close enough to leap on him and drive a blade into his throat. Apparently Altaïr's experience had gone pretty much the same way, however. _Master Assassin my ass_, Desmond thought meanly.

"Go. Return to the old man. Let us see with whom he sides," Malik snapped.

"You and I are on the same side, Malik," Altaïr chided gently.

Desmond was a little taken aback by the comment. He was couple of missions into his rehabilitation, but it seemed that Altaïr might already be on the way into reforming his character. Perhaps this journey might not be so unbearable after all.

Malik had turned his back, and Desmond could feel the Animus trying to pull him away from the memory, but he wasn't ready to leave yet. He took a deep breath and prepared himself.

"Sixteen?" he called out, and winced as his synchronisation slipped, not far, but far enough to be felt.

Malik kept his back turned, but after a second or two there came a response. "You work for Abstergo."

Desmond bristled at that. "I don't work for them. They kidnapped me."

Sixteen let out a low, rough bark of laughter, but gave no other reply.

Desmond was barely synchronised with the memory at all by this point, so he tried repeating Altaïr's words. "You and I are on the same side, Sixteen."

"I don't play well with others, Seventeen."

"My name is..."

Time up.

Desmond let out a groan of frustration as he found himself kicked back to the loading screen. He tried to dive back into the DNA strand, but before he could do so Lucy pulled him out of the Animus altogether. Desmond blinked as the HUD slid away, and sat up to see Lucy tapping at the computer with a delicate frown on her face.

The lights on the Animus were glowing orange instead of the usual blue. Apparently it had overheated, a fact which caused Vidic to fly into a rage. Neither of them commented on Desmond's conversation with Subject Sixteen. Perhaps they'd been distracted enough by the malfunction that they'd missed the conversation entirely.

That thought gave Desmond hope. If he could talk to Sixteen without Lucy or Vidic realising it, then perhaps between them they'd be able to formulate some kind of escape plan, or at least a way of getting a message to the Assassins. It was a vain hope, but it was the only one he had.

* * *

It was surprising how much of a sweat it was possible to work up inside the Animus. Maybe it was just the machine overheating, or perhaps all that running and climbing tricked the body into thinking it was undergoing real physical exertion. Desmond stood under the hot spray, thinking about Malik and the person reliving his memories. It struck him that he didn't know anything about Subject Sixteen, not even whether they were a man or a woman. Perhaps it was an Assassin that Desmond had even met during his days on the Farm. Perhaps - and this thought caused a ripple of dread in Desmond's stomach - perhaps Sixteen wasn't an Assassin at all. He or she could be a Templar, inserted into the program to keep Desmond in line, or get under his skin.

Desmond scrubbed his hands vigorously through his hair to rid it of the soap suds, wishing that he could rinse away his doubts with the same ease. He pipes rattled and gurgled as the water flowed through them. The Templars might have a lot of money, but they didn't seem to be spending it on decent plumbing.

* * *

After the debrief with Al Mualim, it was a long time before Altaïr saw Malik again. For Desmond it was only three days, while he relived the memories of assassinations in Damascus and Acre, and he spent the time focusing on following his ancestor's actions as closely as possible, digging into every corner of his memories in an effort to build his synchronisation and give himself more time with Sixteen when they were finally reunited. He wasn't sure why he was so determined to talk to someone who clearly had no interest in him, but by this point Desmond was ready (and able) to kill for the sake of a kindred spirit.

He had spoken to Lucy in between sessions, and gently probed for an indication that she knew about his interactions with Subject Sixteen. He even asked her flat out about the other subjects.

"I'm Seventeen, right?" he said. He was sitting upright on the bed of the Animus, toying with one of the drawstrings on his hoodie. "So what happened to Subjects One through Sixteen?"

"It's just an arbitrary number, Desmond. It doesn't mean..."

"Don't bullshit me, Lucy." He used a forefinger to tip her chin upwards, forcing her to look him in the eye. "Did they die?" he asked quietly.

Lucy met his gaze unflinchingly. "Of course they didn't. We're not monsters, Desmond. A lot of them are still in testing, some of them are taking a break. Quite a few of them finished the work they needed to do and were released."

Desmond heard the implied incentive and ignored it for the lie it was. "How long have you been testing people?" he persisted.

"A few decades. Since the Animus technology was rediscovered."

"Who was Subject One?"

"I can't give you any names."

"What about Subject Sixteen?"

Lucy looked at him quizzically for a moment, then looked back down at her computer screen. "Why are you interested in Subject Sixteen?"

Shit. He'd given away too much. Desmond tried to deflect the question. "Just being neighbourly. What about Subject Eighteen? Is there a Subject Eighteen yet?"

Lucy was saved from answering as Warren Vidic finished the call he'd been making and strode over to the Animus. "Get into the machine, Desmond! Miss Stillman, I didn't hire you just so you could stand around making gooey eyes at the test subjects. Get a move on!"

* * *

"You came back," Malik said, as Altaïr finally returned to the Bureau. It took Desmond a moment to realise that it was Sixteen who had spoken. The man, or woman, was looking at him curiously through Malik's eyes.

Desmond was now far better synchronised with his ancestor, and he knew that this would buy him a few precious minutes of conversation with the other test subject.

Before he could speak again, Sixteen continued. "I thought that maybe I had imagined you. I'm less sure of things now. Less..." But whatever sentence he had begun trailed away without a finish.

"How long have you been at Abstergo?" Desmond asked.

"About two years. I lose track of the days but I can still count the seasons."

Desmond tried to let that sink in. He'd been here less than a week and he already felt like he was losing the plot. Two years. _Two years_.

"Jesus. You must be going nuts."

Sixteen gave a choked laugh, and Desmond heard, rather than saw, his fingernails scratching against the varnished wood of the counter as he contracted his hands into painful fists. "Two years is nothing. I've lived ... decades, _centuries_ in here. And I've seen things ... but you'll see. You'll see it too. Soon." He laughed again, but it didn't sound like an expression of amusement or good humour. It sounded more like a sob.

Oh crap, this wasn't good. Desmond moved Altaïr's body closer, hesitantly laid a hand on Malik's forearm in an attempt to placate Subject Sixteen. It was a dangerous action, since this was something that Altaïr had probably never done to Malik in his life, and Desmond felt his synchronisation drift further into the danger zone. "Hey, get a grip. I need your help."

Sixteen looked up at him through Malik's deep set eyes and grinned horribly. "Careful, Seventeen. You're dangerously close to coming ... unspooled." He hissed the last word and before Desmond realised what was going on, Sixteen had whipped Malik's hand up and slammed a curved dagger sideways into Altaïr's throat. The brief burst of pain was coupled with the shattering sensation of desynchronisation, and with blood running down his throat and over his chest, turning his white robes red, Desmond collapsed out of the memory and onto the Animus loading screen.


	4. Chapter 4

**Introductory note:**_ Thanks to everyone who read and/or reviewed so far. The first four chapters were pretty much already written which is why the updates have been so fast. From now on I'll probably update every few days instead of every day, and there'll probably be about 15 chapters in total. On with the show..._

* * *

"Shit!" Lucy cried out, and reached over to release the HUD. Vidic caught her by the wrist and yanked her hand away.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked, mockingly.

Lucy freed herself and rubbed her wrist. "You saw what happened! Sixteen just stabbed him in the goddamn throat! We need to terminate this..."

"Not backing out so soon, are we? You're the one who convinced me that this would build morale. It would be a waste not to see how it turns out."

* * *

Desmond sat up, feeling his throat for a wound that was no longer there.

"Have the headaches started yet?"

Desmond spun around in alarm. Malik was standing a few metres away, and it was strange to see him in this cool, blue, alien environment rather than the dusty interior of the Bureau. His dark eyes raked over Altaïr's face, and Desmond felt the very real sensation that Sixteen was somehow seeing through the mask of his ancestor. The thought put him on the defensive, and he remembered that he had good reason to be so.

"You ... stabbed me. You son of a bitch!"

"No point in speaking to you inside the program, with Vidic-" Sixteen spat the name out like it was bile in his mouth, "-listening in. I had to make sure we both desynched at the same time."

Desmond wanted to argue that there were better ways Sixteen could have done that, but then realised he couldn't think of any. "I didn't think it was possible for us to talk outside of the program."

"Two years ago I wouldn't have known how to do it. But now..." Malik's hard brown eyes lost some of Sixteen's shrewd focus and wandered away from Desmond's face to look at their surroundings. "Now ... I _wear _the Animus. She's like a second skin. I can feel her, feel the data, and I can make her do ... whatever I want." His voice dipped a few octaves and Desmond felt a strange, hot, curling sensation in the pit of his stomach. Not for the first time, he wondered if Sixteen was male or female, how old he (or she) was and what he (or she) looked like.

"What's your real name?" he asked, and Sixteen temporarily snapped out of his reverie and stared wildly at Desmond.

"What? It's ... Malik, no ... Guillaume, no, wait, I..." he reached up with his one remaining arm and dug his fingernails into his forehead, letting out a snarl of frustration. "I ... I'm not sure. Oh God. My head. You-" His head whipped up suddenly, his mood switching from pain to fury in a heartbeat. "Who the fuck are you? Do you work for _them_? Is this some kind of test?"

He darted forward suddenly, and Desmond reacted without thinking, grabbing him by the shoulders and holding him in place as he struggled.

This was not going well.

* * *

"What the hell is going on?" Vidic was demanding.

"Nothing!" Lucy insisted. "Desmond's in the loading screen. He's just standing there..."

"We don't have time for him to just stand around. Get him back into that memory strand!"

* * *

"Altaïr," Sixteen growled. "You will pay for my brother's death, you bastard!"

"Oh crap," Desmond sighed. Sixteen was writhing against him, but Malik's body was naturally disadvantaged by the missing arm and Desmond held him off easily. "Hey, snap out of it, you lunatic!"

Sixteen was cursing in Arabic, and the Animus' translation software wasn't offering any aid. Desmond took a deep breath, extricated his left hand and used it to punch Sixteen solidly on the cheekbone, sending him sprawling to the smoky blue surface of the loading screen. The man lay where he fell, lifeless save for the laboured rise and fall of his chest beneath the Assassin robes.

Desmond approached him cautiously, preparing for another attack, but the blow seemed to have knocked some sense back into Subject Sixteen. He sat up slowly, touching Malik's face where it had been struck.

"What did you mean? When you asked me about headaches?" Desmond inquired, finally picking up the conversation Sixteen had tried to start about five minutes ago. Hey, getting stabbed in the throat was distracting.

"Prolonged use of the Animus has a number of negative side effects," Sixteen replied dully, like he was reading from a manual. "Hallucinations, delusions, memory loss, headaches, insomnia, mood swings, impaired cognitive function, loss of appetite. Coma. Death." He laughed bitterly. "I bet they told you the other subjects finished their work and spent the rest of their lives in a comfortable holiday cottage by the sea, right?"

Desmond made a conscious effort to close his mouth. "They died?" he asked, his voice sounding strange to his own ears.

"Not all of them. But you wouldn't need both hands to count the ones who survived. Of those that are still around today, most of them are crazy." He finally looked up at Desmond. "I'm crazy," he added conversationally.

Desmond rolled his eyes. "You're not crazy. Trust me, I used to be a bartender in New York. I've seen so much crazy I could probably teach a class on crazy. And you're not it."

Sixteen frowned, gazing into Desmond's face as if searching for signs of subterfuge. "Then what am I?"

"I don't know. Tired. Scared. Confused. Angry. Lonely." It wasn't a difficult analysis; Desmond was simply going down the list of his own feelings and imagining how they might feel with two years' amplification. He remembered Lucy's dismissal of his concerns about the other subjects and suddenly felt very hot all over. "Betrayed."

There was a long silence before Sixteen spoke again.

"I remember my name now," he said at last. Then he vanished.

The HUD slid back and Desmond sat up, feeling troubled. "What happened?" he asked Lucy, without looking at her. "Did it overheat again?"

"I was just about to ask you that," she replied, and he could feel her gaze though he refused to meet it. "You desynchronised, but then you didn't go back into the memory strand. What were you waiting for?"

"That's precisely what I'd like to know," Vidic snapped. He was standing at the foot of the Animus, arms behind his back, staring at its occupant suspiciously. Desmond felt a thrill of spiteful satisfaction at having so successfully undermined Abstergo's Big Brother complex, a feeling that was magnified when he remembered Subject Sixteen's assertion that Vidic and Lucy had been eavesdropping on their previous conversations.

This situation called for a simple but convincing lie. Desmond shrugged, putting on his best village-simpleton expression. "It just froze up. Couldn't get in, couldn't get out."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lucy shake her head. "That doesn't make any sense, it's functioning just fine..."

"Well obviously it isn't," Desmond snapped harshly, turning to glare at her finally. She drew backwards a little, looking uneasy and hurt.

Suddenly Vidic's phone started ringing. He cursed and pulled it out of his pocket, hissing at Lucy, "You have five minutes to fix that machine and get him back in there, Miss Stillman. We are _not_ finished." Then he stalked away to answer the call.

"Desmond?" Lucy said gently. "Are you alright?"

He looked away. "I'm fine. Just a little tense. Prisoner, remember?"

"You shouldn't think of it that way."

"Oh, really?" he jumped down from the Animus and began walking away from her, towards the door. "Great to hear, I'm just going out for a walk to clear my head."

"Desmond..."

"Oh, wait!" he spun back around just as he reached the locked door. "I don't need to go out for exercise, do I? I get plenty of exercise running around _killing_ people in that thing."

Lucy took a step towards him, the sympathy in her face only making him angrier. "I know, it's difficult, but Altaïr..."

"_Fuck_ Altaïr! He was an arrogant fucking murderer! Altaïr was everything my parents tried to turn me into, he..." Desmond stopped himself, breathing heavily and clenching his fists.

"Altaïr was a great man," Lucy said quietly.

"Pretty weird sentiment to hear from a Templar." He spat the word like a curse.

Lucy folded her arms defensively. "So just who exactly do you hate, Desmond? Assassins or Templars? Whose side are you on?"

"I'm on the side of you-can-all-go-fuck-yourselves." Not exactly biting wit, but it got his point across.

Vidic finished his call and returned to Lucy's side. "Lover's tiff, is it?" he called disdainfully. "Get back in the Animus, Mr Miles. You have work to do."

Desmond stayed where he was, defiant. Vidic raised an eyebrow.

"Shall I call the doctors and have them induce a coma?"

"No!" Lucy said quickly. "That won't be necessary. Desmond..." She looked at him pleadingly.

There was a split second where Desmond had to focus all of his energy into not confronting Lucy about what he had learnt from Sixteen. If he got back into the Animus, then some day there would be no need for the doctors to induce a coma. In Subject Sixteen he had seen himself as he would be if he didn't get out of here in time, and that was a thought that _terrified_ him. His cooperation might save him now, but sooner or later it would be his downfall.

He had one crumpled card still up his sleeve. He had spoken to Sixteen, and Vidic hadn't been able to listen in. If he could keep the other man sane for long enough, then perhaps they could help each other escape from this mess. The chance was so slim that it verged on invisible, but it was all he had.

Desmond surrendered, and with every step he took towards the Animus he imagined he could feel gallows dirt between his toes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Introductory note:** _If you like Subject Sixteen, here's a bit of a tip for you. It's something that I only realised recently. In Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Sixteen takes over Shaun's duty of writing the entries for the Animus database, and like Shaun did in the two previous games, Sixteen has a tendency to let his character slip a little as he writes. The entry he writes about himself is particularly illuminating, as it talks about his self harm and suicide, as well as how he transferred his consciousness into the Animus. For a character who is pretty much an enigma, his Animus database entries are very interesting to read and I'd recommend doing so. On with the story..._

* * *

"Sixteen?"

Malik didn't respond. He stood at the counter, waiting for Altaïr's next words. Desmond sighed. As he'd feared, they'd pulled Subject Sixteen out of the program and he was no longer in control of Malik's memory. Desmond had just witnessed Altaïr's assassination of Majd Addin, regent of Jerusalem, and Altaïr's hands were still sticky with the man's blood. He continued with the memory.

"It is done." He laid the bloody feather on the counter

Malik opened his mouth with a sneer already in place, no doubt ready to belittle the task or Altaïr's execution of it somehow. Before he could speak, however, there was a furious pounding at the door.

"Open up! We know you shelter the assassin of Majd Addin!"

Panic crossed Malik's face, and quickly turned into fury as he turned the heat of his gaze onto Altaïr. "You were spotted entering the building! You have lead them straight to us, you ... you _novice_!"

"The roof," Altaïr said quickly, his voice calm, already striding into the terrace room.

Malik followed him, turning his head as he went to look at the door to the Assassin's Guild. It shuddered as if someone had kicked it violently. "The roof!" he echoed angrily. "You expect me to climb with one arm?"

Altair leapt gracefully up the wall, keeping his head ducked low when he reached the roof to keep from being spotted by the guards on the ground. He leaned over and reached out with one hand. "I will help you."

Malik looked at the proffered hand, his face torn between rage and fear, but he didn't move.

Altaïr tossed his head impatiently. "Take my hand, Malik, or I shall leave you here to shake hands with Death! I will not perish by the blade of your foolishness."

Malik snarled, then reached up with his remaining arm and gripped Altaïr's wrist. Altaïr grasped his in return and pulled him up bodily with a grunt of exertion, Malik's feet scrabbling on the stone wall.

"Down!" Altaïr hissed when he'd dragged Malik fully into the roof. "Follow me." He began crawling away on his belly, like a lizard. Desmond was quite glad that he was unable to see Malik's face at this point; he doubted the man was taking kindly to the commands from one who was technically his subordinate. Somewhere below, he heard the _crack _of the Assassins Bureau door start to give way.

They crossed several buildings before Desmond felt the old familiar tug of genetic memory and dropped from the flat roof into an alleyway. Malik landed next to him a second later with surprising grace; it seemed that in the intervening months since his amputation, the man's Assassin instincts had already begun to compensate for the missing limb.

His strength had returned as well.

Malik grabbed Altaïr by the front of his robes and drove him against the nearest wall. "You ... you..." He was nearly speechless with rage, his face close enough that Desmond could see the angry moisture welling above the dark lower lashes of his eyes. "You son of a whore! My Bureau ... my home ... they are tearing it apart as we speak!"

"Yet speak you do, Malik, for your head is still on your shoulders. Not five minutes have passed since I saved your life, and you seem to have forgotten already."

Desmond cringed inwardly even as the words left his mouth. Even though he would be on the receiving end of it, part of him longed for Malik to punch the incorrigible Assassin in the face hard enough to give him another scar.

Malik definitely seemed to be considering it, his mouth open with disbelief and outrage, when two guards rounded the corner and found them. They were clearly members of the hunting party, for they drew their swords immediately upon seeing Altaïr and gave twin battle cries as they charged the two men.

Desmond cursed to himself even as he drew his sword. Unlike the escape, which had been fairly carefully scripted by his DNA, combat always seemed to get messy. It was as if his genes couldn't quite remember how these encounters had gone, and so the only strict rule was "don't die". He tucked his stomach in and leapt backwards just in time to avoid having his belly sliced open by the guard's curved sword. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Malik's hidden blade - the only weapon he had - whip up and block the other guard's sword a split second before it would have cleaved through his face.

When he had the luxury of time, Desmond preferred to play defensive in these fights. Usually when an opponent attacked they left themselves vulnerable to a counter attack, and adopting a pose of utter stillness tended to unnerve them and lower their defenses even further.

Right now, Desmond did not have the luxury of time.

Uttering a silent prayer to whoever might be listening, he feigned to the right and then attacked from the left, bringing his sword down in a furious overarm swing that hacked sideways and down into the guard's body, then yanked it out of his chest in a devastating slice that ended the man's life before he had a chance to cry out.

Desmond spun around in time to see Malik fall to the dusty ground. He was no longer using his arm to defend himself, but had instead clamped the hand to a wound in his side. Desmond ran the guard through before he had time to finish Malik off, but even as the body fell sideways to the earth he felt a rush of dread in the pit of his stomach.

"Malik!" Altaïr said urgently, sinking to the man's side. He touched Malik's hand where it lay it lay upon the welling pool of blood. "How severe is your wound?"

Desmond's fear was compounded when Malik didn't retort straight away, but simply lay back breathing between his teeth. "My head is light. I have lost blood, a lot of it, and quickly," he replied tersely.

Altaïr tore the half-empty sleeve from Malik's left arm and bundled it up, then tore a long strip of cloth from his own robes.

"Lift your hand," he instructed, and Malik did so. A fresh wave of blood escaped the wound before Altaïr clamped the torn sleeve against it. He then used the white strip of cloth create a makeshift binding. "We are not safe here, we need to move."

Malik shuddered at the prospect. "I will not get far. You would stand a better chance if you went on without me."

"Indeed I would. I am going to count to three and then lift you. Help me if you can."

"Altaïr..."

"One..."

"Altaïr, where will we go?"

On the outside, Altaïr remained stoic, but Desmond could feel his muscles tighten with unease at Malik's words. "Two."

"As Bureau Leader..." Malik winced. "... Of this district ... I order you ... to run."

"I think that unwise, Malik. If we run it will jar your wound."

"Altaïr, I order you..."

"You are in no position to give orders, Malik. You have one limb and a considerable amount of blood less than I."

Malik's eyes, which had dulled slightly, blazed for a moment with fresh anger. "You are a stubborn fool!"

"Brace yourself, I'm going to lift you."

"Altaïr..." Something new in Malik's tone caused Desmond's ancestor to pause and finally meet the other man's eye. It was unnatural, to see the usually tempestuous man looking so weary and resigned. "If fate has written that I shall die today, there is nothing you or I can do to alter it."

And suddenly the sick feeling in the pit of Desmond's stomach made sense, for it was as if Malik's words were intended for him. He was reliving a memory right now. All of this had already happened, and despite what other leniencies the Animus might allow him, this was not an event that he had the power to change. If Malik had died that day, over eight hundred years ago, then all Desmond would be able to do now would be to watch him die again.

And If Malik had died of this wound in 1191, then Sixteen's part in the story was over. Desmond would never speak to him again.

"Altaïr! Altaïr!"

It wasn't Malik who had spoken this time, but a female voice from behind them. Desmond turned to see a peasant woman standing in a doorway that opened onto the alley, beckoning to him. She looked familiar.

"Do you remember me, Altaïr? You came to Jerusalem three moons ago. The guards were harassing me, they accused me of terrible things, they were ready to kill me. You saved my life. Praise be that I am now able to return the favour!"

_Well fuck me_, Desmond thought. _All that rescuing the downtrodden shit is finally coming full circle._

Altaïr lifted Malik up by his arm while instructing the peasant woman to press down on the bandage. Together they guided the wounded Assassin into her house and Altaïr begged her to fetch a doctor for Malik. After she had hurried from the house, Altaïr knelt by Malik's side. The one-armed man had his eyes closed and his breath was shallow, and Desmond was surprised when Altaïr took Malik's hand in his, closed his eyes and began to speak an old prayer. For some reason the Animus didn't translate the words, but they sounded sincere and beautiful.

After a time Malik opened his eyes slowly and looked at Altaïr's guarding form. "I think..." he began.

"Do not say it, Malik. You have spoken of death enough today."

"I was going to say ... that I think I may live yet."

Altaïr turned a critical eye on him. "Let us wait to see what the doctor says, shall we?"

Malik laughed weakly. "First you scold me for speaking of death, now I am chided for optimism? You are a contrary man, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad."

"Argument keeps you strong, Malik Al-Sayf."

Malik didn't die from that wound. The memory picked up again three days later, after the doctor pronounced Malik well enough to travel. The Assassins Bureau door was broken in, but much of the interior had been left untouched, and as the two of them picked their way over the broken boards on the floor Desmond had a strange feeling that Malik might have gained a small amount of respect for the disgraced Assassin.

Much later, Desmond would learn that Malik Al-Sayf died in 1227, beheaded by a traitor, and his head was delivered to Altaïr in a dripping burlap sack. He would sleep restlessly for a week after discovering how Malik's story had ended, and offer many a silent prayer that he would never have to witness it through Altaïr's eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

The incident with Malik troubled Desmond far more than he felt it should. He lay on his bed that night, stricken with the curse of insomnia that using the Animus had settled upon him, and it occurred to him that he knew very little about Altaïr. He might inhabit his body and relive his actions, but he couldn't read his mind and Altaïr didn't exactly wear his heart on his sleeve. His steady, unswerving loyalty to Malik and the tenderness he had shown at the man's sickbed was so out of place compared to everything else Desmond had seen of him so far. Suddenly he found himself reassessing his knowledge of Altaïr, and he quickly realised that he was incapable of drawing new conclusions to replace the old ones.

_What does it matter?_ he asked himself. _He's dead. He's been dead for eight hundred years._

Desmond gasped aloud and sat up, more in surprise than pain, as the impact of that thought hit him somewhere around the sternum. To his amazement, he felt his eyes start to sting and water a little. He massaged the curious ache in his chest with one hand and grappled with the alien emotions running through him. It was as though his body was experiencing the symptoms of grief while his mind simply looked on in shock.

Was this another side effect of using the Animus, or was this simply a quirk of Desmond's own strangeness? Was it normal to grieve for an ancestor you'd never even really met? It wasn't as though he'd started blubbing in the history classes back on the Farm, when they'd learned about the Crusades or the American Civil War. There'd always been an emphatic divide between the past and the present, and there'd always been an unconscious certainty that events which took place centuries ago were somehow less real than Desmond's fights with his parents or the slightly burnt taste of his oatmeal that morning.

Living the past instead of simply studying it had changed his perspective - that much was obvious. Then, as if this whole business wasn't strange enough, he had discovered a small nugget of the present within his exploration of the past. Finding Subject Sixteen in the Animus had suddenly made everything disturbingly immediate, so much so that Desmond had genuinely feared for Malik's life when he'd been hurt. As though Malik were a real person instead of simply a historical figure...

_He is real_, said Altaïr's voice inside Desmond's head.

In 2012, Desmond Miles fell asleep with those words echoing in his head.

In 1191, Malik Al-Sayf lay in a dusty hovel with his teeth clenched, trying and failing to block out the pain of his wound. Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad sat silently by his side, not sleeping but keeping watch, his sharp eyes shrouded in darkness.

In 1863, Sergeant Mateusz Kaczmarkiewicz (his mother, before she died, had called him Matty), was already deafened by the roar of battle when a spray of blood directly into his face stole his sight away as well. For a terrible moment he mistook the red haze for his own death coming to claim him, but after the battle he wouldn't remember this thought at all. He wiped the blood from his eyes and raised his rifle again.

In 1524, a very old man called Ezio Auditore da Firenze sat on a bench, blinking into sunshine that seemed so much brighter than it really should be, and was struck with surprise at the sudden fatigue that seemed to have crept up on him.

In 2012, twenty feet away from where Desmond slept, a man who had come to think of himself as Subject Sixteen was standing upright, his eyes wide and focused to the point of blindness as he daubed symbols on the wall, using his own blood as ink. No one came in to stop him, and Sixteen wondered absently if they were even watching the feed from his cell any more.

* * *

_Thank God_, Desmond thought, when the memory picked up in the Jerusalem Bureau instead of back at Masyaf. He stood up from the pile of cushions and walked briskly into the adjacent room, where a novice Assassin was repairing the broken door patiently. Desmond could see the bustle of the street outside through the holes that still remained, and the beams of light playing over the usually dark, dusty interior of the Bureau made the room look strange and foreign.

Malik was standing by the shelves, replacing books that had been knocked down. He looked perhaps even stranger in the daylight than the Bureau did; it lent a glossy sheen to his dark hair and brought golden tones out in his even brown skin.

"You are over-exerting yourself, Malik," Altaïr reproached, picking up the last heavy volume from the floor and replacing it on the shelf.

Malik took the volume from where Altaïr had placed it and moved it to the correct shelf, letting out a little huff of breath when he was done. "I heal quickly, Altaïr, and too much rest will only waste away my strength." He stretched his remaining arm out, testing how far he could flex it without irritating the cut in his side. "The alarm has ended. The guards believe you have fled the city. Today you may do so."

Altaïr nodded silently, and Desmond took the opportunity to test the waters.

"Sixteen?"

"Seventeen."

He breathed a sigh of relief. His synchronisation was much stronger since the assassination and the escape with Malik, and he hoped that this would allow them to talk for a while without Sixteen stabbing him back to the loading screen.

"I didn't think they'd let us talk again," he said.

Sixteen shrugged Malik's shoulders. "Vidic can't resist spying on us."

Desmond felt a shiver of unease. Subject Sixteen was barely sane at the best of times, but there was something jittery and unstable seeping through into Malik's expression. "Is something wrong?"

Sixteen gave one of his humourless laughs. "Are you forgetting that we have an audience?"

For some reason Desmond looked up at those words, as if he expected to see Vidic and Lucy's faces looming over them. His heart sinking, he looked back into Malik's face, which was wearing Sixteen's haunting grin. "You want to, uh, desynchronise us again?" he asked. He was about halfway desynched anyway, but the prospect of another knife in his throat didn't particularly appeal to him. He braced himself for it, just in case Sixteen was planning another surprise attack.

Sixteen closed his eyes and shook his head, still with that same fixed smile. "Do me, this time," he commanded softly, an unnatural yearning in his voice.

Desmond tried to and failed to process this.

With a surprising gentleness, Sixteen took hold of Altaïr's hand and lifted it until the fingers were cupped around Malik's neck and the tip of the wrist blade was pressed against his Adam's apple. "Do it," he crooned, his eyes closing once more.

Desmond felt his synchronisation wavering uncertainly at the position they were in, and wondered if it was possible for him to throw up inside the Animus. "I can't..."

"This is the easiest way. Do it."

With very instinct in his body shuddering against the instruction, Desmond cringed, tightened his fingers on the side of Malik's throat to brace the hidden blade, before triggering the mechanism and sending it plunging deep into the other man's body. Malik jerked and gurgled, and then the Jerusalem Bureau collapsed around them to leave nothing but the softly wavering blue of the loading screen.

The disgust caught up with Desmond, and he shoved Sixteen away from him even as the wound disappeared from Malik's throat. "What the_ fuck_?" he cried, throwing his hands up and clasping behind the back of his head as if afraid of what they might do next.

"Is there a problem?"

"You just _begged _me to stab you!" Desmond accused. "Like you were getting off on it! What the hell am I supposed to do with that? I..." He didn't know what to say next, and Sixteen was simply watching him with a bored, patronising expression.

Desmond marched over to him, took him by the shoulders and shook him, glaring at him with a desperation that was probably alien to Altaïr's cool brown eyes. "Jesus, Sixteen, I can't imagine what you're been through but I need you to hold it together, I need ... I can't deal with..."

"It didn't hurt," Sixteen said absently, as if speaking to himself. "That's the difference. In here, it doesn't really hurt."

"What difference? What are you...?"

Sixteen's eyes flicked back to Desmond's and stared into them with an uncomfortable intensity. "I'm just trying to hold it together, Seventeen. I'm trying to ... compartmentalise. Everything has become terribly messy." He looked distracted for a moment, then smiled viciously. "I can feel Vidic trying to hack in right now. Or maybe it's Lucy, or Chevko. They want to listen in on us. But I'm too good now. They made a mistake, letting me use the Animus for so long."

Desmond tried to keep track of what Sixteen was saying. "You're able to manipulate the Animus," he said slowly. There was a moment of silence as he processed this. "Are the Animi connected to any other part of Abstergo's systems?"

Sixteen cocked Malik's head to one side. "You're wondering if I can hack their security systems. You're wondering if I can help us escape."

"Well..."

"I can't. You think I'd still be here if I could?"

Desmond realised Altaïr's hands were still resting on Malik's shoulders and removed them without looking away. "I don't know. Maybe."

That finally made Sixteen pause. He looked up at Desmond slowly, curiously. "What do you mean by that?" he asked. His voice was soft and dangerous.

Desmond shrugged Altaïr's shoulders, causing the throwing knives on his back to clink together slightly. "The way that you talk about the Animus makes me think that Abstergo could leave all their doors wide open and you still wouldn't try to escape. It's like you ... you love this. Even though it's killing you."

Sixteen didn't reply, and beneath the mask of Malik's face he was unreadable.

Desmond sighed. "Tell me if that's true. Because I plan to escape, Sixteen, and I want you to come with me. You're the only other subject I've met in here and seeing what they've done to you, and how you've fought against it..." He shook his head. "I don't want to just leave you here to die. I think that would be a waste."

Sixteen's gaze felt like an X-ray. "What does it matter?" he asked at last. "Do you even have a real plan? What makes you think it's even possible?"

Desmond took heart at the quiet undercurrent of hope and interest in Sixteen's sardonic words. "I think, if I knew you were on my side, it would become a lot more possible."

"You don't even know me. You don't even know who I am."

"So, tell me."

Malik's face remained inscrutable, and Desmond felt a surge of frustration at being unable to read Sixteen's emotions. If trying to figure out Altaïr was like trying to decipher a puzzle, trying to get even a glimpse of Sixteen's true self was about as easy as unlocking a door that didn't have a keyhole.

Then Sixteen said: "I volunteered for this."

Desmond stared. Sixteen took another step closer to him.

"I came here willingly. I stayed ... willingly. I..."

"Oh Jesus. Oh fuck."

"Seventeen."

"You're a Templar? You're a fucking _Templar?"_

"Listen to me."

But Desmond was backing away, shaking his head disbelievingly. "I actually felt _sorry_ for you. Now you tell me chose this, you chose _them_? You ... you..." There existed words, he was sure, that would describe just what he thought of 'Subject Sixteen' at this moment, but they were refusing to come to him.

"I'm not a Templar! I'm not!" Sixteen darted forward suddenly, grabbing Desmond's wrist with Malik's single remaining hand, and there was a rare show of desperation on his face. "I let myself be taken by the Templars, but I'm an Assassin. I was supposed to come here and gain information but things got out of my control and I could feel myself starting to slip, and then ... and now..." Malik's eyes were enormous and wild and panicked. "Now I want out, I do. Oh God, Seventeen, please don't leave me here. I want to leave, I want to see my family again, I want to try and get my old life back while I still can. Please help me ... help..."

Desmond tried to process this new show of emotion. "While you still can?" he repeated slowly.

Sixteen nodded, looking directly into Desmond's eyes with an uncomfortable intensity. "What you said about me ... you were right. I didn't realise it until now but the Animus is like a drug and I am ... an addict."

Malik's image began to fracture around the edges, and Desmond realised that Chevko had given up on trying to hack in on them and was pulling his test subject out of the Animus.

"Do you think you can walk away from it?" Desmond demanded, his voice still harsh and shaking a little with residual anger.

Sixteen looked directly at him, and Desmond was alarmed to see that Malik's usual dark eyes were suddenly clue, a clear blue tinged with stony grey around the edges. Hard, like diamonds, filled with fear and determination and bright with mania. "I do now," he replied steadily, and then vanished.

* * *

That night, Desmond had a strange dream. He was stood on the end of a crane that overlooked a beautiful but deadly crevasse in the landscape, being whipped on all sides by a viciously cold wind so strong that it came close to knocking him off balance. He was wearing a harness with a bungee cord attached to it, and his arms were spread wide.

Suddenly he was aware of someone behind him, and he knew it was Subject Sixteen. Desmond didn't turn around because he knew he wouldn't see a face, but he felt the tips of Sixteen's fingers as they settled on either side of his waist, and the fingertips were cold enough to send a chill up his spine.

Then a pair of lips grazed the back of his ear and Sixteen whispered, "Save me."

The fingertips evolved into hands that trailed up Desmond's sides and then round to his back, palming his shoulderblades. Sixteen pushed, not violently, but hard enough to tip the balance in favour of the wind, and Desmond tumbled from the end of the crane and into the cruel expanse of open air, the bungee cord whipping behind him like a snake.

A thought hit him: _Did I remember to tie the cord at the other end?_

His limbs flailed, mercilessly tossed about by the motion of the fall, and Desmond saw the jagged rocks below coming closer and closer and closer...

He woke up still waiting for the bungee cord to go taut.


	7. Chapter 7

Desmond leaned his head against the cool tiles of the shower, his breath still short in his chest, and pressed hard enough to hurt. He already had a slight headache but he suspected that it was psychosomatic, and that he'd never have got it in the first place if Sixteen hadn't told him to look out for them. Desmond was keeping himself on guard for signs of madness and breakdown, and he believed he might have just found one.

The warm water sluiced the evidence from his stomach and hand, but he felt the trace of it still, an irrefutable reminder of what he had just done. Less than a day ago he had been scolding Subject Sixteen for being aroused by thoughts of violence and death, and now he was jerking off in front of Abstergo cameras with his eyes closed and images of a fall and jagged rocks flashing across his mind, reliving a sensation of being pushed at the moment of climax.

When he awoke in that state, he knew that the best course of action would be a cold shower, but it seemed the shower in his cell only had one temperature and it wasn't all that conducive to beating back arousal. He had felt a flash of anger and rebellion, which he now he realised was probably the result of another kind of frustration, and decided that if Abstergo wanted a show they were going to get one. So now Vidic had footage of him masturbating. Fantastic. Desmond wondered with a wince if Lucy would ever see it as well. Probably, knowing his luck.

He felt weak and disgusting. He turned around, keeping his head pressed against the tiles, until his back and shoulders were pressed against them too. He listened to the rhythmic banging of the pipes.

Rhythmic.

Desmond's eyes flashed open and he lifted his head, suddenly alert. He tilted his head up and looked at an exposed pipe in the wall above his head. It was making a racket, but there was something about it, something almost musical...

BANG. _Clank ... clank ... clank ... clank ... clank ... clank ... _BANG. BANG. BANG.

Desmond stared at the pipe and thought: _no fucking way._

BANG. _Clank ... clank ... clank ... clank ... clank ... clank ... _BANG. BANG. BANG.

Again. How long had it been doing that without him realising it. The pattern of it was awakening something lost deep in his memory, _Desmond's _memory as opposed to those of his ancestors. A lesson he'd been taught on the Farm, and a sheet that he'd been given to memorise. Hours of rapping on tree trunks until his knuckles were raw and red, trying to burn the information into his head so that his father wouldn't be able to scold him for laziness.

BANG. _Clank ... clank ... clank ... clank..._

One.

_Clank ... Clank ... _BANG. BANG. BANG.

Seven.

"Seventeen," Desmond murmured to himself, then gave a shout of disbelieving laughter. "Morse-fucking-code."

His heart suddenly beating far faster than could possibly be healthy, Desmond reached up to grip the pipe, eager to acknowledge and respond to the message. He wrapped his fingers around it without a thought and would later recall that the _feeling _that something was wrong came before the pain itself.

"Ahhh _fuck me_!" he howled, ripping his hand away from the lava-hot surface of the pipe, the skin of his fingertips and palm already red and blistering. He knew he had to get it under cold water to stop the burn from penetrating further, but this _fucking _shower only had one temperature.

Desmond staggered across the bathroom, drops of water flying in arcs from his body and cascading onto the floor, and used his remaining hand to twist the cold tap in the sink. He plunged the burns into the stream and gave a distinctly unmasculine whimper of relief as the chilled flow of water ran over his injuries like novocaine. He was going to be in a lot of pain for a long time once he took his hand out, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to enjoy this temporary relief.

Inside the pipes, water gurgled and sounded suspiciously like laughter.

* * *

Painful as it was, Desmond kept his hand curled into a fist as he walked out of his room. Vidic, who was standing by his desk and had looked up at the opening of the door, didn't seem to notice, or give him any knowing looks, so presumably he hadn't seen the double humiliation in the bathroom. Yet.

Lucy was standing by the Animus, her brow a little furrowed with worry, but she gave him a tentative smile as he approached. Desmond was too shaken to remember that he was supposed to be angry with her, so he smiled back. The way her smile spread further with relief drew some of the poison out of Desmond's morning and he hopped up onto the Animus almost willingly.

"Not just yet, Mr Miles," Vidic called, from by the window. "I believe that you and I need to have a little chat first." He beckoned with one finger, as though Desmond were a dog.

Attempting to conceal his trepidation with an equally powerful feeling of resentment, Desmond stalked over to the desk deliberately slowly. Vidic sat down and indicated the chair on the other side of the desk. Desmond remained standing and folded his arms pointedly, enjoying the sensation of looking down on Vidic.

The doctor gave a menacing laugh. "You want me on your side, Mr Miles, trust me. Sit down."

Desmond took the luxury of a few more seconds just standing and staring defiantly, before kicking one leg of the chair to move it out and dropping into it gracelessly. "What do you want to talk about, Warren?"

"I want to ask you about Subject Sixteen."

"What a coincidence."

Vidic raised an eyebrow. "I imagine there's very little you need to ask me. You two seem to have had quite a few cosy little chats among yourselves."

Desmond tried and failed to hold back a smirk at Vidic's admittance that he'd been unable to listen in. "He's a good conversationalist."

"Oh? What kind of topics do the two of you ... touch on?"

"I don't think that's any of your business."

A pen on the desk jumped a few inches before rolling off the edge and clattering onto the floor. Desmond stared coolly at Vidic's fist, still pressing into the smooth plastic surface where he had slammed it a second before. "You listen to me very carefully, Miles," he snarled. "Everything that goes on inside that machine is my business."

"We're concerned about you, Desmond," Lucy said, approaching from behind him with her soothing voice.

Vidic gave an unattractive snort of laughter.

"_I'm_ concerned about you," Lucy amended, coming around the side of the desk and giving Vidic a pointed look. "Desmond, Subject Sixteen has been in the program for several months already-"

"Try two years," Desmond interrupted, and then immediately cursed himself for speaking when he saw Lucy and Vidic exchange a look tinged with triumph. It had been a trick - of course it had - to determine how much Sixteen had told him.

"Well, he's been using the Animus for a long time," Lucy continued. "We think that the stress has become too much for him. He's unstable, Desmond, he's paranoid - suffering delusions and exhibiting violent behaviour."

In for a dime, in for a dollar. "Well that's not unusual for subjects in the program is it?" Desmond probed, watching Lucy's face carefully.

She looked a little confused. "Some of the other subjects suffered from insomnia, but aside from that there were no real adverse effects. Nothing long-term, anyway.

"Well it must be difficult to measure long-term adverse side effects in dead people. Aside from decomposition."

Vidic laughed condescendingly. "Oh, is that what Sixteen told you? He does love his little conspiracy theories. Sixteen thinks that we use you people up like batteries and then toss you out when you die. I suppose the idea appeals to him."

Desmond stood up abruptly and heard the chair clatter to the floor behind. "You're lying!" he exploded. "Both of you," he added, turning his head to glare into Lucy's pitying face.

"He's sick," she stated quietly. "He's a sick man, Desmond."

The words sparked a realisation in Desmond that he should have picked up on long ago in the conversation: Subject Sixteen was male. He supposed that he had come to think that way naturally, since he always spoke to Sixteen when he was wearing the guise of Malik's face, but it was strange to have it confirmed. It occurred to him that he still knew so little about the man, not even...

"What's his name?" Desmond asked, changing his tone to one that he hoped was less threatening.

Lucy pressed her lips together tensely. "We use numbers instead of names for a reason, Desmond."

Desmond recognised the irony in the sentence but decided not to point it out. "Are you going to separate us?" he asked bluntly.

"We haven't decided yet. According to what we know of Altaïr's timeline, it's a while before he and Malik saw each other again. We have time to decide what's best."

"You mean I'm on probation? I play nice and I get to talk to Sixteen again?"

"If that makes you more cooperative, then by all means look at it that way," Vidic cut in.

Desmond looked back at him and decided to test how much bargaining room he had. "I want to meet him," he said. "In real life, I mean."

"Not going to happen."

"Why not?"

Vidic's eyes flashed angrily. "You don't get to demand reasons from me, Mr Miles. Need I remind you that you're a prisoner here?"

"Need I remind _you_ that you'll never unlock Altaïr's memories without me. You need me, Vidic. How about we all try to play nice?"

For a second, Desmond genuinely thought that Vidic was going to hit him. A look of unbridled fury flashed across the old man's face, but then with unsettling ease it melted into one of malevolent intent. "Get him into the Animus, Miss Stillman. Let's make this session a long one."

* * *

Vidic had his revenge. Desmond was kept in the Animus for so long that eventually it gave out before he did, even with the new cooling system that was supposed to prevent it from overheating. Desmond traversed hundreds of miles on horseback through the mountains, valleys and forests of the Middle East, pursued by soldiers for at least a dozen miles of his journey. He climbed dizzying heights to scout out the surrounding landscape. He beat men with his bare fists for information and felt their skin split like overripe fruit under his knuckles. He killed countless guards: with his hidden blade, with his sword, with throwing knives, by burying them under scaffolding and pushing them from the tops of buildings, and sometimes even with their own weapons.

In the hours that Desmond spent inside the Animus, he lived months of bloodshed, exhaustion and ugliness in Altaïr's shoes and wondered more than once how the Assassin had borne it without breaking down completely. He travelled between Masyaf, Damascus and Acre only, and did not see Malik or Subject Sixteen. He had no idea what Sixteen was living through in his own machine, and hoped that it was nothing so brutal as this.

_It must be nightfall by now_, Desmond thought wearily as Altaïr crossed the rooftops of the rich district of Damascus, silent as a ghost and invisible even in the harsh glare of the Syrian sunshine. He was waiting for Lucy to pull him out of the Animus, but Vidic had apparently elected productivity as Desmond's punishment. Perhaps after this last assassination he would be allowed to rest.

The target was Abu'l Nuqoud, a wealthy merchant guilty of stealing money from the city treasury and spending it on fripperies and fineries. Desmond slipped over a wall and into Abu'l's palace, where one of his traditional parties was taking place. Abu'l himself was on a balcony overlooking the courtyard, and Desmond saw that he was corpulent and frog-faced, dressed in alarmingly bright colours. When he began to speak, his voice was deep and had an almost bloated quality. Desmond's stomach turned in distaste, and he was unsettled to find himself looking forward to this death.

The fountain in the centre of the courtyard was running with wine instead of water, and he was tempted to take a drink of it in preparation for what he had to do. He reached for a goblet, but then immediately felt the memory fighting against his actions, his synchronisation dropping a fraction like a reprimand.

_No._

Desmond realised his own stupidity and sighed internally. Altaïr hadn't taken a drink, because he must have known there was something wrong with the wine. His theory was confirmed a moment later when Nuqoud proposed a toast to the people, with an ominious wish that they receive "everything you deserve".

"Do you take me for a fool?" he rumbled, anger threading its way into his voice. "That I have not heard the words whispered behind my back? Well I have, and I fear I can never forget."

From his clothes, his mannerisms, and the way he had stroked the cheek of one of his guards earlier, Desmond guessed what kind of words had been whispered about Abu'l Nuqoud. He hazarded a guess that they were accurate ones, and doubly cruel for being so, since the penalties for living a certain lifestyle in this society must have been heavy. For the second time that day, he found his suspicions confirmed by Nuqoud's next words.

"All this suffering is born of fear and hate. It bothers you that they are different, just as it bothers you that_ I _am different," he declared, before revealing what Desmond presumed must be a reference to his Templar allegiance. There were gasps of shock from the crowd around him, and Desmond turned his head to see a serving girl by his side, a youthful, freckled, pretty face with lips reddened from where she had illicitly taken a sip of the wine, put a hand to her mouth. Her eyes were wide with shock, and then pain. Her mouth moved to her stomach and she cried out, then reached with her other hand to grab at Altaïr's sleeve, silently pleading for help.

_She's been dead for eight hundred years,_ Desmond reminded himself. _This is just a memory._ But it still hurt when he found himself shaking her loose like an inconvenience, as Altaïr endeavoured to escape the crowd and get closer to Abu'l. Without hesitation, Desmond charged up the fountain, tainted wine splashing his boots, and sprang onto a nearby balcony. Dodging the guards, he took Abu'l by surprise and slid the hidden blade up and into his ribs.

There was a strange moment where time seemed to stand still between the two of them, and Altaïr's next words took Desmond by surprise with their tenderness.

"Be at peace now. Their words can no longer do harm."

Abu'l Nuqoud died angry, spitting insults at his killer and defending his own reprehensible actions with a dismissive, gurgling laugh. His eyes fixed on Altaïr, his amphibian face uncomfortably close so that Desmond could see pain creating lines around his mouth.

"You take the lives of men and women, strong in the conviction that their deaths will improve the lots of those left behind: a minor evil for a greater good," he gasped accusingly. He reached up with one hand and caressed Altaïr's elbow. "We are the same!"

For the first time, Desmond felt a sudden and very real sense that Altaïr had been genuinely unbalanced and laid bare by the man's words. He watched his ancestor's fingers tighten in the layers of gaudy fabric swathing the man's bulky frame. "No!" he barked, his voice anguished. "We are nothing alike!"

"Ah, but I see it in your eyes. You doubt." As his heart slowed and stopped, Abu'l Naqoud was left frozen with an expression of pleased satisfaction. Altaïr shook him off in disgust, and Desmond was left to fight his way through an entire army of guards.

He staggered back to the Bureau and made his report. He was dimly aware of the HUD sliding back and Lucy's anxious face as she touched his chest, told him to take it easy, told him he would be allowed to rest. There was a terrible, pounding ache in his head.

Desmond passed out before he made it back to his room.


	8. Chapter 8

_The smell of woodsmoke. The guttural cries from the training ground. His father standing behind him, speaking in his commanding voice that always seemed to contain a reprimand._

_"What is our Creed?"_

_Desmond rolls his eyes. He is fifteen years old. His limbs feel too long, and he has become clumsy during training._

_"Never compromise the Brotherhood," he sing-songs._

_His father's disapproval radiates with a kind of heat, so that Desmond can feel it even with his back turned. He doesn't care. This stupid. He's already planning his escape..._

_Except he's only eleven years old. He's starting to feel doubt, but still held in the thrall of the Farm, and of his people and their teachings. A punch lands on his cheek and he gives a cry of anger and frustration as he staggers back. He uses the distance between him and the other boy to gain momentum, and charges forward with his head lowered, successfully tackling him to the ground._

_If he were any other child in America, his parents would be trying to stop this fight, to break it up. Instead his father is standing behind him with his arms crossed, and when Desmond tries to quit he is pushed firmly back onto the dirt circle, with a hissed whisper in his ear._

_"Hide in plain sight."_

_Desmond knocks the other child into defeat using his elbow. He catches his father's eye and grins as he catches a flicker of pride there, ignoring the sting of pain in his cheekbone..._

_No, there is no pain. He is six years old and lying on a bed that his mother built by hand, the wooden frame still a little coarse. The bed is too big for him; Desmond is only 3 feet tall, short for his age and scared that he will always be this short. He's trying to sleep but he can't help remembering the words that were recited to him for the first time earlier that day._

_"Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent."_

_Desmond doesn't know what death is, not really. He doesn't understand the Creed, but he believes in it with all the blind faith of a child, and he repeats over and over the words which make no sense to him, but sound nice all the same._

_"Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."_

_He falls asleep, and the next thing he hears is that damn morning bell, ringing through the clear forest air, scolding him._

_"Desmond ... wake up, Desmond. Desmond ... Are you awake yet?"_

"Desmond?"

Desmond groaned and opened his eyes. It was surprisingly difficult, not least because they were almost glued shut by rheum. His head hurt, though not as badly as it did, and he had been unconscious for so long that the waking state felt unnatural to him.

"Take your time. Don't try to sit up just yet."

Desmond tried to sit up, just to be obstinate, and found that his limbs were too weak. He looked up helplessly at Lucy, who was sitting at his bedside, her face and hair still a little blurry in his groggy vision.

"What..." His mouth was impossibly dry, and he licked his cracked lips effectlessly with a rough tongue. "What happened?" he croaked, as Lucy handed him a glass of water. He took it from her and drank greedily.

Lucy shook her head, and blonde strands fell down onto her forehead. "We kept you in the Animus for over eighteen hours. I tried to get you out, I kept telling Vidic that it was too much but he wouldn't listen. In the end the Animus overheated and I pulled you out manually. You ... collapsed. For a while we were worried that there might be brain damage..."

"A while?" Desmond repeated slowly. "How long have I been out?"

"About four days. We moved you back here from the infirmary today."

"And is there any?"

"Any...?"

"Brain damage."

"Oh. None that we've been able to find with the scans, though of course we'll run some tests later on today."

"That's very comforting."

"Desmond..."

"How long do I have before you put me back in?" he demanded harshly.

"I'm going to talk to Warren, try to negotiate a couple more days respite. He's impatient, but he doesn't want to lose you."

"Warren doesn't care about me, he only cares about my DNA. There's a difference, believe it or not."

"_I_ care about you, Desmond."

"Fuck you, Lucy."

A look of shock, then anger, crossed Lucy's face. She pressed her lips together and left the room, and Desmond felt a sudden certainty that if it were possible to slam the door, she would have done so. He sighed and forced himself up into a sitting position, wincing as his head pounded at the movement and unable to decide if he was too hot or too cold.

"Nice going, Miles," he muttered to himself. "You have one ally in here and you can't burn that bridge fast enough. Just brilliant."

It occurred to him that he had one other ally. Unfortunately the man was a fellow prisoner, probably mentally unstable and possibly not an ally at all. He thought about the pipes again, and realised that if Sixteen had been able to rattle them in such a way that Desmond could hear them, he must be close by...

That made him really sit up, and he swung his legs over the side of the bed and took a deep breath to prepare himself. Then he stood up.

"_Ow_! Goddamn..."

It was as though there was a cloud of pain hovering about five feet off the ground, and he'd just raised his head directly into it. Pressing the heel of his hand into his left temple, Desmond staggered into the bathroom, grateful for the cool tiles beneath his feet. One look in the mirror told him that he had lost weight in the past few days, and his skin was sallow and marked with dark circles under the eyes. He suddenly felt extremely grubby and stripped off his clothes before staggering into the shower.

Desmond's heart was pounding, and despite feeling like total shit he was more excited than really he had any right to be. With one trembling hand he reached for the loose pipe, and found it blessedly cool when he cautiously wrapped his fingers around it. He tried to conjure up memories of morse code but that hurt his head, so in the end he settled for just rattling the thing as hard as he could in a clumsy but (hopefully) effective message.

After about thirty seconds the increased pain in his head made Desmond realise that he was holding his breath. When the replying rattle finally came, he had been waiting so long that it actually made him jump. There was rhythm to it, but Desmond was still too groggy to decipher it, so he simply settled for waiting until it was over and rattling back violently.

A short silence followed. Desmond pressed his hand wonderingly to the cool tiles on the wall and realised that Sixteen must be just the other side. If this damn wall wasn't in the way, they'd probably be close enough to touch.

Desmond wondered if Sixteen was naked as well.

_Drip._

What the hell? The shower wasn't even turned on.

_Drip._

Desmond looked down. There was red on the tiles and on his bare toes, two fat round circles spreading out into a star pattern from the impact. Smaller splashes around them.

_Drip._

Desmond looked up at the ceiling, but the blood wasn't coming from there. As he tilted his head back, though, he felt something warm slide down backwards down his nasopharanyx and he choked, threw his head forwards again and snorted through his nose.

Blood spattered the tiles, and trickled over Desmond's lips and down his chin.

"Oh Jesus..."

He'd had nose bleeds before, but nothing this bad. Desmond reached for a towel and suddenly everything was sideways, and there was a dull _thunk _sound as though someone had dropped a bowling ball nearby. His cheek was pressed against something hard and cold and the white of the walls was suddenly invading everything else - bleeding into the other colours and shapes until they were overrun.

* * *

Lucy removed the blood pressure cuff from his arm with a satisfying _shrrrrk_ of velcro and pressed her small hand to his forehead. Desmond smiled, unable to help but find her concern endearing. Three more days had passed since his collapse in the bathroom, and now he found himself lying back down on the Animus, ready to return to Altaïr and Masyaf, and surprised by how much he was looking forward to it.

"I'm fine, Lucy, I swear. Can we just get on with it?"

She sighed unhappily and glanced over at Warren Vidic, who was by his desk. "Just a few hours, to see how well you readjust," she said in a low voice. "If you start to feel sick..."

"I know, exit the Animus straight away," he recited in a sing-song voice.

"This isn't a joke, Desmond. It's going to take me a while for me to get over the sight of you lying on the floor covered in blood..."

"...Bare-ass naked, yeah. Must have been quite a shock."

Lucy's mouth quirked into a smile. "Nothing I haven't seen before."

Ouch. So that meant she'd seen the _other _security footage, the video where Desmond was...

"Enough dawdling!" Vidic snapped, stalking over to them with the awkward gait of a bird of prey attempting to walk along the ground.

Desmond rolled his eyes before the HUD slid up, and then...

* * *

"Each man I have slain has confessed strange words to me. They are without regret. Even in death they seem confident of their success. Though they do not admit it directly, there is a tie that binds them."

"As an Assassin, it is your duty to still these thoughts and trust in your Master."

With those words, Desmond decided that he didn't trust Al Mualim. Perhaps it was the rebellious teen in him, but even though he was living first-hand the evidence of the warnings his parents had given to him as a child, he wasn't yet ready to accept everything they had told him. Al Mualim was diverting Altaïr away from his instincts and away from the truth, and Desmond was suspicious of the way the old man's sharp eyes darted about in their deep-set sockets. That he bore more than a passing resemblance to Warren Vidic probably didn't help.

Even as his dislike of Al Mualim grew, Desmond found himself growing less and less abraded by Altaïr. There was narcissism in it, to be sure, for the more the Assassin questioned and rebelled, the closer he began to resemble Desmond himself.

"You speak in circles, Master! You commend me for being aware and then ask me not to be! Which is it?"

The fondness grew a little in Desmond's chest, which was several thousand miles and eight hundred years away from where Altaïr stood. He could remember saying the exact same thing to his father, albeit less eloquently. Shortly afterwards he was fleeing through a forest, down a river, and along a highway. He was running in ragged clothes, then travelling in a motor vehicle for the first time in his memory, losing his virginity in the back of a van to a girl from Illinois whose name he could no longer recall.

Having conceded defeat in the discussion with Al Mualim, Altaïr was finally set back on the road to Jerusalem. Desmond raced across the landscape as fast as he could manage, not stopping to tear down the flags of King Richard or fight the guards who pursued him. With only a few hours inside the Animus, he had little time to reach Subject Sixteen and confirm whether the man was still alive, sane, and inside the program.

His progress through the city was maddeningly slow. The guards were already on high alert, it seemed, and he was only able to reach to Bureau by blending with crowds of roaming scholars. Their snail-like pace left Desmond gnashing his teeth in frustration, and eventually he gave up and dashed hell-for-leather along the rooftops, praying that the archers were having a lazy day.

He dropped down the trellis and into the cool, meditative interior of the Bureau. Malik was sat cross-legged on the cushions, and he looked up mildly at Altaïr's sweating, panting form.

"Altaïr..." he began, but Desmond interrupted immediately.

"Knock-knock."

"Seventeen?"

"Who else?"

Malik stood up and slid a serrated knife into Altaïr's guts. It felt like a welcome home.


	9. Chapter 9

Subject Sixteen paced up and down, rubbing Malik's stump with his remaining hand and glaring accusingly at Desmond. His fingers worried at the cloth that covered the scarred flesh as though he was trying to reach an itch beneath the skin, and his eyes were that same cold blue once more, standing out strangely in the dark skin of Malik's face. In turn, Malik's dusty robes looked odd when framed by the slightly unreal backdrop of the Animus loading screen where they stood, about ten feet apart, Desmond still nursing a phantom wound in his stomach. "You were gone," Sixteen bit out abruptly.

"I..."

"For a week. I kept ... a tally." He giggled at some private joke.

"I was sick."

"I pictured you leaving Abstergo without me. Running away and leaving me here. To _rot_." He growled out the last word, and the knowledge that he couldn't come to harm whilst inside the Animus did nothing to prevent the wave of unease that curved through Desmond's abdomen.

"I didn't leave!" he snapped back defensively.

Sixteen looked up sharply and stopped. "Was it the headaches?"

"Yeah," Desmond admitted.

"Shit. Fuck. OK..." Sixteen shook his head, as though there were flies buzzing around it. "We need to get out of here, and soon. Before you die, if possible."

Desmond hesitated, remembering the conversation with Lucy and Vidic. "Listen, are you sure about ... what you said about the other subjects?"

He'd tried to ask the question casually but Sixteen was too sharp for that. He looked at Desmond searchingly, and then groaned. "Vidic," he muttered. "Vidic got to you."

"I..."

"What did he call me? Did he say I was a liar, or just crazy? Crazy, I'll bet. You'd believe that. You _do_ believe that."

Desmond could feel the situation starting to unspool and tried to pull it together before it dissipated completely. "I already told you, I don't think you're crazy."

"So you think I'm a liar?"

"_What_?"

Sixteen took his hand away from the stump of his arm and began scrubbing it through Malik's black hair. "I don't blame you," he muttered. "You don't even know me, you don't..."

He stopped scratching.

"Of course."

Suddenly Desmond was staggering backwards as Sixteen vanished and reappeared immediately by his side. The other man caught him with his remaining arm and pulled him close so that they were pressed hard against each other. Desmond fought a rising wave of panic that was mixed in with something else, something that he didn't want to think about, and then Sixteen's cheek was pressed against his, beard scratching against Altaïr's clean-shaven cheek.

"Close your eyes," Sixteen murmured.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing, unless you close your eyes."

Reluctantly, Desmond followed the instruction, lowering his eyelids until the blue haze and crackling lines of the Animus were obscured by darkness.

"No cheating."

One of Sixteen's hands was still pressed palm-down into the middle of Desmond's back, and he felt the other come up to cover his closed eyes.

Wait a minute. _Two _hands?

"Shhh, I'm concentrating. Try to clear your mind."

Desmond tried, but against the skin of his cheek he experienced the incredibly surreal sensation of Malik's beard drawing back into his skin, leaving only a layer of fine stubble, and the structure of his facial bones shifting and changing. It was accompanied by a strange crackling sound, like the noise the Animus made as it began to reconstruct places and people from Desmond's genetic memory.

"Almost there," Sixteen gasped in his ear, and his voice had changed as well. Before he had simply sounded like Malik, speaking in an American accent, but now there was a different pitch to it and the syllables were drawn out like the strain of bowstrings on a violin.

"What's happening?" Desmond managed at last, opening his eyes to find the hand gone from his face. He brought a hand around to tap Subject Sixteen's shoulder, and found that instead of Assassin robes his fingers were touching the dark green material of a T-shirt, a modern label just visible under the collar, and the skin beneath it was far paler than Malik's. "Sixteen, what are you...?"

The crackling noise stopped as abruptly as it had started and the other man drew away slowly, keeping one hand against Desmond's back and then sliding it around to touch his chest until they were an arm's length apart, Sixteen's fingers pressed directly over Desmond's heart as his blue eyes fixed Altaïr's face with an unbridled intensity.

Desmond stared back at him.

"This is what I look like. Really."

"You look..." He looked a lot of things. "Taller."

Sixteen gave a rich peal of laughter. He took his right hand away from Desmond's chest and held it up alongside his left one in front of him, looking at them admiringly. "Man, it feels good to have all four limbs again. Just my luck to have an ancestor who was a cripple."

Desmond looked down at Sixteen's arms and swallowed hard. The palm of his right hand was covered in shiny red patches, much like the ones Desmond himself had acquired a week ago but obviously much more severe. His fingernails had been torn or bitten back so far that they were nothing but ragged half-moons buried in sore-looking flesh and his forearms were criss-crossed with wounds that seemed to have been made by teeth, nails (while he still had them) and the sharp edges of furniture. A lot of them seemed to have partially healed over, only to be opened up again. It wasn't a pretty sight.

Sixteen looked up to find Desmond staring and gave him a hollow grin. "They wouldn't give me any paint."

"That's pretty resourceful of you," Desmond said. He had no idea if the flippant remark was sufficient in concealing the emotions of horror and pity that threatened to overwhelm him when he looked at those injuries. These were not created by the sharpness of a razorblade or a scalpel. They were the result of trauma from blunt edges and tearing and must have been agonising, created in a state of pain and confusion that Desmond couldn't even begin to imagine. The sight of them made him want to cry and embrace Sixteen and kill Warren Vidic and every Templar who ever considered himself entitled to turn a human being into something like this, all at the same time.

"They'll never clean it off the walls, not all of it," Sixteen purred, stroking a bite mark meditatively. "Blood sticks."

"I know."

Sixteen raised an eyebrow that was a slightly darker shade of blonde than the hair on his head.

"Assassin, remember?"

"But you've never really killed anybody." It was a statement, not a question, and Desmond was a little taken aback.

"How do you know that?"

"I can tell," Sixteen crooned, running his eyes over Altaïr's face. "You don't wear him well. There's something about Altaïr that doesn't quite fit you. He was a killer, you're not."

For some reason Desmond found himself offended by the statement. "You don't know me."

"And _you_ don't know _me_, which is why I'm showing you this. I _need _you to trust me, Seventeen." Sixteen took a step closer to him, anxiety breaking through the amused condescendence of his expression.

"So showing me your face is supposed to make me trust you?"

"Did it work, Subject Seventeen?" Sixteen was so close now that Desmond could count the individual flecks of grey in his irises, could feel an aura radiating from his body like heat, and could hear the low crackle of data flowing beneath his skin and holding him together.

"No," Desmond replied, trying to keep his voice under control. "I don't trust you."

Sixteen's face twisted.

"But you're all I've got."

The snarl turned into a Cheshire Cat grin and Sixteen stepped away a little, dropping his gaze to stare at Altaïr's boots before raking it back up his body. "I wonder what _you_ really look like," he murmured.

"I could give you a description," Desmond began, but Sixteen waved a hand at him dismissively.

"Don't bother."

"But..." Desmond shook his head in frustration. "You don't know anything about me. You don't know my name, what I look like ... Hell, you don't even know if I'm a man or a woman."

"You're a man."

"Oh? You can tell?"

"I can tell. You want to know why I'm so adamant about not knowing your name or what you look like, Seventeen? Before I met you, I'd lost all interest in escaping from Abstergo. There was plenty of stuff that I wanted to know, and every bit of it was locked away somewhere inside the Animus. I was about ready to have them put me into a coma so I could stay here permanently." He paused for a moment, running a hand backwards through the dark blonde strands of his hair whilst keeping his gaze fixed on Altaïr's face with an almost rabid fascination. "Now I have another unanswered question. You."

Desmond felt some phantom muscle contort inside his chest. It was hard to imagine anyone considering him to be so interesting that the prospect of finding out more about him was a reason to live. He opened his mouth to respond, but when he met Sixteen's gaze he suddenly realised that he had no idea what to say.

Then the sky, such as it was, fractured.

There was a sensation like an earthquake and both men tumbled onto the surface of the Animus, which had turned from its usual blue to a deep black shot through with red scars.

"-anaged to bypass the firewalls he set up..." Desmond heard Lucy's voice echoing around them and he met Sixteen's panicked gaze as the other man struggled to find his feet again.

"Excellent." That was Vidic, triumphant. "Your little game is over, Mr Kaczmarek."

Sixteen's face set in a hard, angry line. Desmond, who was on his feet again, reached out and took the other man by the hand, pulling him up.

"Kaczmarek?" he repeated, and Sixteen shrugged in defeat.

"I think you've wasted enough of our time as well, Mr Miles," Vidic added.

Desmond heard a sharp intake of breath and felt Kaczmarek's fingers tighten painfully on his hand, saw his eyes widen in shock and then anger as he stared disbelievingly at Desmond.

"Miles?" he echoed, the last letter coming out as a hiss.

"Yeah, that's my..."

"William Miles?"

Desmond gaped.

"You son of a_ bitch_!"

Any protests he had planned to make were lost as Kaczmarek's hands whipped up and latched fiercely around Desmond's throat, bearing them both to the ground once more. Desmond kicked out and struggled but Kaczmarek was impossibly strong and the last sensation Desmond felt before Lucy pulled him out of the Animus was the sickening _crack_ of Altaïr's neck snapping under the pressure of those fingers.


	10. Chapter 10

Desmond opened his eyes and found one hand wrapped defensively around his throat where Kaczmarek's fingers had been only seconds before in the Animus. Lucy was bent over him, calmly taking his pulse. Desmond shook her loose.

"Let me back in!" he demanded, sitting up.

"No point," she said coolly. "Chevko will have taken Subject Sixteen out of the Animus as well."

"Then let me talk to him!"

Vidic, who was standing at the foot of the Animus, chuckled softly.

"Just keep calm, Desmond, and let us worry about Subject Sixteen," Lucy told him soothingly, placing a hand on his chest and pushing him back down into a lying position as she reached for the blood pressure cuff.

_I was about ready to have them put me into a coma so I could stay here permanently. Now I have another unanswered question. You._

Desmond took a deep breath, deciding that it was worth trying the reasonable approach. "Listen to me," he said, in as calm a voice he could muster. "Subject Sixteen heard you say my name and it freaked him out. If I could just talk to him for a few minutes, let him see my face..."

"The last thing you need right now is another distraction, Desmond," Lucy interrupted in that same maddening clinical tone.

"You're supposed to be finding something for us!" Vidic snapped.

"Then _you_ tell him! Tell him who I am! At least tell him that I'm not my father!"

Suddenly Vidic slapped the metal clipboard he was holding violently onto the end of the Animus with a _clang _that made both Lucy and Desmond jump. "I've warned you about making demands, Mr Miles!" His eyes were small and spiteful as he glared down the length of the machine, and a hint of malice tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Besides, knowing your identity will make little difference to Subject Sixteen now."

Something implied by his tone made Desmond's blood run cold. "What do you mean?"

"Dr Chevko has grown tired of Subject Sixteen's little outbursts. Frankly, his mental breakdown has reached the point where he's effectively useless to us outside of the Animus." Vidic paused to enjoy to look of horror that was surely crossing Desmond's face. "His continued insubordinance today was the last straw. I'm going to recommend extreme measures."

"What?" Lucy looked up at Vidic, distress parting her lips and widening her eyes. "Warren, what are you talking about?"

"They're going to induce a coma," Desmond replied before Vidic had a chance to. He could see it all now, see how little Subject Sixteen meant to them now. "They're going to put him in the Animus and keep him there until he dies."

Lucy looked between the two men, aghast. "Warren, you can't!"

"I'll kill you, Vidic," Desmond said quietly, not taking his eyes off the sneering old man.

Vidic laughed derisively. "Oh, is this the part when you vow to escape and come back one day to have your revenge?"

"Not one day." Desmond tensed his muscles, ready. "_Now_."

He was already halfway towards Vidic when he spoke the last word. Vidic's eyes opened wide as Desmond kicked him violently in the chest with both feet, sending him tumbling to the ground in a painful clatter of limbs. Before he'd really formulated a plan, Desmond found himself straddling the other man's chest, holding onto the pale throat with one hand to keep the head still, leaving him free to pound away with his fist at every part of Vidic's face that looked tempting. Dimly he heard Lucy screaming his name, and the doors opening as guards rushed in, but the sounds were muffled as though separated from him by a wall of water. The skin on Desmond's knuckles split open on a broken tooth inside Vidic's mouth, and the man beneath him gave a horrible, quiet moan of pain.

The sound seemed to penetrate the mist that Desmond found himself lost in, and he saw himself as though through the eyes of one of _his _descendants, looking back on the actions of their ancestor in horror.

Less than a decade ago he had escaped the Farm and run away to the big city in a van full of hippies, desperate to escape the violence that he'd been told lay in his destiny. Now he was beating a septagenarian to death with his bare fists inside a Templar stronghold. Never mind who the man was or what he had done - Desmond was _killing _him, perhaps had killed him already, and until now there had been no instinct inside him trying to stop it.

The horror overtook him momentarily. Then he thought about Subject Sixteen - about Kaczmarek.

Desmond slammed his bloody fist into Vidic's stomach, and the man arched off the ground a little as his body tried to double up in pain.

The next blow never fell. Two guards caught him by the arms and dragged him away. Desmond struggled, and suddenly there was a sensation like every muscle in his body firing up with pain and twitching out of his control: a spasm that radiated from a knot of impact in the middle of his chest. His spine arched and his body curved backwards into the waiting grasp of his captors, and it wasn't until later that he would come to associate the curious ticking noise he heard with the firing of a taser.

For a while there were only patches of awareness: Lucy opening her phone, yelling at someone to call an ambulance for Vidic; Desmond's heels skidding on the floor as the guards dragged him to his room; the impact of landing on the bed face-first, and the way it drove the air out of his lungs; waiting in panic for the sensation of paralysis that the taser had left him with to subside; the feeling of numbness giving way to one of itching all over. At some point exhaustion overtook him and Desmond drifted into sleep.

* * *

The last punch had been one of strategy, not of anger. A few days before, Vidic and Lucy had got into rather a heated discussion and retired to the conference room adjacent to Desmond's bedroom so that the discussion could turn into a full-blown argument. Desmond had tried to enter to conference room before and found it locked, but looking askance at the two of them he had seen Vidic slip a small, pen-like object from his pocket and use it to remotely unlock the door.

It had been a simple motion to whisk it out of Vidic's coat as he lay bleeding and conceal it in Desmond's own pocket.

Desmond turned it over in his fingers, staring at the only exit to his room. There were guards outside, at least two of them by the rumble of their conversation, but he strongly suspected they'd been disallowed from killing or seriously injuring him. Desmond had no compunction about doing so to them; he'd been ready to kill Vidic, and for all he knew the man might be dead from the beating already. Somewhere, a maddening handful of feet away from him. Subject Sixteen might be harming himself or worse because of a misunderstanding, and no fear of becoming a killer would be enough to slow Desmond down now.

He stood up, stretching his muscles in preparation and taking a few deep breaths. He'd rehearsed the next movements in his mind over and over again. He was ready.

Later, Desmond would be unable to remember exactly how the fight went. His genes remembered, though.

The door opened.

The guards turned their heads at the same time, each into the path of a fist. The one on the right hit the ground, but the one on the left only staggered backwards.

Desmond followed up the punch to left guard by kicking him between the legs, slamming a fist into his throat and then jabbing two knuckles into his eye. The man fell, unable to make any noise.

The right guard was just getting up when Desmond kicked him in the face, and then stamped on his head as it rebounded off the ground. Had he been wearing boots instead of sneakers, the man probably would have died. As it was, he was knocked out instantaneously.

The other was weakened but still awake, so Desmond whipped round once more and kneeled down, wrapping an arm around his throat and choking him until the man ran out of oxygen, his fingers falling limply from where they had been clutching at Desmond's forearm. He held on for a few more seconds to be certain, and then released the man and pushed him away.

Desmond sized up the two guards and selected one who looked closest to his own build, offering a silent prayer of thanks that there had been minimal blood spilled during the engagement. He stripped quickly - first himself and then the guard - and within minutes was in a clean, if slightly rumpled, Abstergo uniform.

He took a gun from the other guard, tossed his dirty clothes onto the nearly-naked man he'd left behind, and strolled out of the door.

* * *

It was about five o'clock in the morning and the building was nearly deserted, for which Desmond was thankful. Despite his current disguise and the remote key in his pocket, he doubted he'd be able to pass off the guard disguise for very long in front of any real Abstergo employees. There was the danger that he would be recognised, but in this uniform the greater danger was that he would not be; the small contingent of guards who worked the building would surely know each other's faces well, and the sight of a stranger in their uniform would quickly arouse suspicion.

Outside of his Animus chamber, there was a small plaque on the door bearing the number 1417. Fourteenth floor, room seventeen. That eliminated any chance of escaping through the window, then.

He walked left and saw a door with the number 1418 on it, then walked to the right and found what he was looking for.

1416.

Desmond took a deep breath and released it slowly. Now came the time for the second part of the plan, and the part that he had debated the longest. At first, every instinct in his body had screamed at him to simply run in, find Kaczmarek and explain everything. But he had no idea if Kaczmarek would believe him, and even if he did there was a chance he would distrust Desmond simply for being William Miles' son. There was a ticking clock now that Desmond had knocked out the guards in front of security cameras, since it could only be a matter of time before someone realised and the alarms started going off. He needed to get Kaczmarek out, and he needed to do it fast.

With a command from Vidic's key the light outside the door switched from red to green, and slid open smoothly as Desmond approached. He could feel a little sweat gathering under his arms and at his throat, and realised just how nervous he was at the prospect of coming face to face with his ... friend? Was Kaczmarek a friend, or an ally? Possibly neither, by this point, but Desmond didn't for a minute stop to consider leaving the man behind.

Inside, the layout of section 1416 was similar to Desmond's own quarters, only a little smaller and reversed, so that Desmond's and Kaczmarek's sleeping areas shared a wall. Knowing that the man must have heard him enter, and that any hesitation would seem strange, Desmond strode to the bedroom door, readied himself, and opened it.

"Subject Sixteen!" he called out, assuming that the guards would refer to the subjects only by their numbers. His eyes fixed on the figure sitting bolt upright on the bed, and suddenly it became very hard to maintain a neutral expression.

There he was: in the flesh. The low lighting cast harsh shadows on his face and Desmond could see fresh wounds on his arms, which he was clutching almost defensively in his hands. The walls of the room were smeared with strange symbols, some of them old and brown and others new, red, and glistening.

Kaczmarek. Desmond didn't even know his first name. His eyes were bright hard and curious as they stared up at Desmond, and his hair was mussed as though he had been running his fingers through it. He was wearing only boxers and a T-shirt, and the shape of his body was outlined by the white material.

All this Desmond noticed in less than a few seconds, but it was still too long, and he wa staring. He could only pray that Kaczmarek would put it down to the state of the walls.

"Is there a problem, officer?" Kaczmarek asked sardonically.

"Get up. We're going for a walk."

"It's not even dawn. Bit early for a wake-up call."

"It's not a wake-up call if you weren't sleeping."

"I'm not dressed."

"_Get_ dressed." Desmond flexed his fingers on the butt of his gun pointedly.

Kaczmarek watched the motion and stood up antagonistically slowly. He crossed to the wardrobe and pulled off his shirt, revealing an upper body that was solid and commensurately muscular. He had his back to Desmond, who was left to watch the shifting of rhomboid and deltoid muscles beneath skin that was almost silver in the blue-tinted lighting, before the sight disappeared beneath a T-shirt that was almost identical to the one Kaczmarek had just removed. He pulled on blue jeans, zipped and buttoned, followed lastly by a slightly thicker button-down shirt that was pulled over the T-shirt.

"Let's go," Desmond said with a dry mouth. He stood aside and motioned for Kaczmarek to walk in front of him, keeping one hand on his gun.

"You still haven't said where we're going," Kaczmarek called over his shoulder. Desmond winced at how loud his voice was. He didn't reply, figuring that the Abstergo guards probably weren't big talkers.

They left 1416 and Desmond pointed in the direction of a set of double doors with a sign above them indicating that they led to stairs. Kaczmarek walked slightly ahead of him, and though Desmond kept his gaze directly ahead he could feel the other man's gaze flicking over to him. He could almost hear Kaczmarek's cogs turning. _He's suspicious_, Desmond thought to himself. _He knows something's wrong_.

They reached the stairs and Desmond opened one of the doors, holding it ajar for Kaczmarek to pass through. The man quirked his mouth into a smirk and gave a mock-bow of gratitude at the courtesy. Desmond hardened his gaze and returned a hand to the butt of his gun, at which Kaczmarek rolled his eyes and continued to descent the stairs.

"Don't you guys usually patrol in pairs?" he asked, his voice echoing around the white walls of the stairwell.

"This isn't a patrol, it's an escort," Desmond replied, immediately cursing himself for breaking the no-speaking rule he'd laid out for himself not a few moments before.

They descended two flights of stairs in silence, Kaczmarek continuing to glance over at Desmond's face.

"How did you get that scar?"

"What?" Desmond was too surprised by the question to ignore it.

"That scar. On your mouth. How did you get it?"

They had gone down another set of steps. Desmond glanced up and saw a security camera peering beadily at them from a corner. Kaczmarek followed his gaze.

"Why do you care?" Desmond asked, to distract him.

"I know someone else with a scar just like it."

Desmond could hear in his voice a deliberate, probing mechanism that belied the casual way in which he made the line of inquiry. Kaczmarek was clever, and he sensed - though he might not know - that something wasn't quite right.

"Eyes front," Desmond said, in a monotone.

They reached the ground floor. Desmond paused for a moment by the double doors, but could see several legitimate guards milling about. Kaczmarek moved to go through the doors and Desmond grabbed him by the arm, realising as he did so that this was the first physical contact the two of them had made.

Kaczmarek raised an eyebrow and Desmond pointed back towards the stairs. "We're going to the basement."

"We're leaving?"

"Huh?"

"The only thing in this basement is the car park."

Desmond thought this over quickly. "_You're _leaving. They're moving you."

"Why?" He asked the question loudly and it bounced off the walls. Out of the corner of his eye, Desmond saw a guard glance towards them.

"I didn't ask. Move."

A minute later they burst into the dank grey of an underground car park. Desmond scanned the area and saw that there were only a few cars there at this hour, and a lone guard sat in a booth near a thick gate that cut off the outside world.

Desmond motioned for Kaczmarek to follow him. As he neared the booth he saw the guard sit up suddenly, looking not at them but at a button on the bank of controls in front of him that had started to flash with an orange-red light. Distantly, Desmond thought he heard the sound of an alarm, and then the doors they had just passed through burst open.

_Show time._

Desmond grabbed Kaczmarek by the back of his shirt and threw him in the direction of a van that had a reasonable amount of space beneath it. "Get under there," he hissed, turning away before Kaczmarek had a chance to respond.

There were five guards altogether: the one in the booth, and four that had just come through the doors and were starting to break from a trot into a run. Desmond didn't like the idea of fighting a battle on two fronts, so he dodged sideways until the open door of the booth was in his sights, pulled out his gun and emptied three rounds into the guard just as he was standing up.

The man flew back with the impact of the first 9mm bullet, and sank down against the wall of the booth, leaving behind a smear of blood. Desmond kept running into the booth and - standing over the body of the man he had just killed - he hit the door release button.

At any moment he expected to feel bullets piercing his skin, but the guards weren't even firing. They had stopped to take cover momentarily when Desmond had shot their colleague, but now they were running towards him with batons drawn. Kaczmarek was still leaning against the side of the van, staring at him wildly, so Desmond grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him towards the slowly opening gate with a cry of, "Come _on_!"

There was still only a two foot gap underneath it by the time they got there, so Desmond dropped immediately and simply rolled underneath it, hearing rather than seeing Kaczmarek do the same. It was bitterly cold outside but he wasn't exactly in a position to complain. He stood up, dragged Kaczmarek to his feet, grabbed the man by his shaking shoulders and looked him in the eye for the first time.

"_Run_!"


	11. Chapter 11

Running away was something that came easily to Desmond, who had done it a few times. In the past, however, he'd always had the advantage of running away alone, and he was discovering that doing it with a partner gave a rather unwelcome boost to the challenge.

They were blessed in that the entrance to the car park opened up directly onto a main street, and the city's grid system made it easy for them to zig-zag their way through alleys, never staying on the same street for too long. This also meant that Desmond was in constant risk of losing sight of Kaczmarek, which was something that he definitely didn't want to do until he could be sure that the man wasn't trying to lose _him _as well. At one point he tried grabbing hold of Kaczmarek's hand, but some of the paths they were taking were so narrow that he quickly realised hand-holding was not going to be an option.

After the first few minutes Desmond stopped hearing the sound of guards chasing after them. After ten minutes of near-sprinting he developed a pain in his side and stopped to lean against the window of a launderette. To his relief, Kaczmarek backtracked from where he had run on a little and joined Desmond, his breath ragged and dark patches of sweat visibly forming on the front of his T-shirt. There weren't many people around at this time of day, but the few people that there were gave the pair of them very odd looks.

"You..." Kaczmarek paused for a moment to get his breath back. "You need to get out of that uniform. It makes you stand out a mile."

"And running around naked won't?"

Kaczmarek looked around, and then ducked into the launderette. Desmond heard one of the dryers inside stop spinning with an abrupt _clunk_ as Kaczmarek opened the door, and after about a minute he returned, holding a pair of jeans and what looked like a large hockey jersey with a penguin on it.

Desmond nodded gratefully and walked into an alley that led to a damp, overcast car park. He stripped off the Abstergo uniform while Kaczmarek watched, and felt his skin heat up even in the freezing weather. As soon as the effect wore off, however, he realised that the hockey jersey was going to be insufficent for keeping out the cold.

"We need to get somewhere inside," he stated, his teeth chattering. "A hotel or something."

"I hope you have some money, then, because Abstergo commandeered all my credit cards."

"Right ... shit." Desmond realised that his wallet was presumably somewhere at Abstergo, probably in Warren Vidic's desk.

Kaczmarek looked at him, studying his uncertainty. "Are you serious? The Assassins didn't give you any dough to help you get by?"

"The Assassins?"

Kaczmarek's frown lifted a little in realisation. "The Assassins didn't send you?"

Desmond shook his head, with no idea how to begin telling Kaczmarek the truth. The other man seemed to be working himself up to the challenge of deducing it anyway.

"No. The Assassins wouldn't send an agent in to rescue someone like me. I'm not valuable enough to them. If they were going to launch a rescue mission then it would be for Subject Seventeen, but either they decided to leave him behind or..."

There was a long moment. Eventually Desmond nodded wearily, wishing that they could have this discussion somewhere warm.

"You _are_ Subject Seventeen."

Desmond was starting to get light-headed from exhaustion and cold. "I told you I'd figure out an escape plan," he said.

Kaczmarek looked somewhere between confused and horrified, and was taking steps towards Desmond with the air of someone who really wanted to be walking away. His eyes had acquired that brittle edge that Desmond had come to associate with his moments of insanity. Beneath the concealing layer of the hockey jersey, he tensed his muscles ready to deal with an attack.

"Miles?" Kaczmarek murmured slowly, scanning Desmond's face with his piercing gaze. "Vidic called you Miles."

"_Desmond_ Miles. I'm William Miles' son. But-" Desmond held out a hand placatingly as Kaczmarek visibly recoiled. "I haven't seen him in years, I swear. I ran away from home when I was sixteen, I'm not even an Assassin, not really..."

"That guard back there would probably beg to differ."

Desmond opened his mouth and then realised that he had no counter-argument. He thought about the blood dripping down the window of the booth and wondered if the guard had been a husband or a father. Would it matter if he was? Was his life worth less if he had lived alone, just as Desmond had done for the last few years?

Kaczmarek was walking away.

"Hey!" Desmond yelled, running after him. "I just busted my ass to get you out of Abstergo! If you think I'm just going to let you vanish on me..."

He grabbed Kaczmarek by the arm and the man calmly turned, fisted a hand in the front of Desmond's jersey and shoved him backwards into the rough bricks of the wall. "Relax, _Miles_, I'm just going to acquire some capital and I can't work with you breathing over my shoulder."

Kaczmarek's body was impossibly close, impossibly real, his bloodied forearm a hard line down Desmond's chest and stomach. Then he was gone, and Desmond sank to the ground, his back scraping against the brickwork. He closed his eyes, attempting to recover his composure, and realised just how exhausted he was, unsatiated by his short, taser-driven sleep from earlier.

It was fifteen minutes before Kaczmarek returned. He brandished two wallets and a fistful of notes in front of Desmond's face proudly, like a dog offering his master a bone.

"Where the hell did you get all that?"

"You live in the Animus long enough, you learn everything you need to know about being a pickpocket. Come on, we're still only a couple of miles from Abstergo. We'll take a bus downtown, find somewhere to hole up for the day and then travel out of the city at nightfall."

It was strange to see Kaczmarek making plans like this; the man seemed to swerve between being completely together and being totally unstable, but Desmond was too tired and cold to argue. He was about to struggle to his feet when he felt a hand in the crook of his elbow and Kaczmarek lifted him up effortlessly. He was strong, Desmond realised, and fast. Had he been working out in between Animus sessions for the last two years?

The bus arrived just as they made it back onto the street. Desmond slumped into a seat while Kaczmarek paid for both of them and passed out almost immediately.

* * *

A particularly nasty bump in the road woke him up with a jolt, and Desmond realised that he had fallen asleep on Kaczmarek's shoulder. The man didn't seem to mind. He was looking directly ahead, watching the road, his eyes flicking nervously from right to left, and Desmond realised that his body was shaking in a way that wasn't completely due to the bumpy road.

Desmond laid his head back down on Kaczmarek's shoulder and closed his eyes, feeling the trembling in the other man's body start to abate a little.

* * *

Desmond woke up again when Kaczmarek moved, standing up so fast that Desmond's head slid off his shoulder and he nearly fell off the seat altogether. By the time he had recovered, Kaczmarek was already off the bus and Desmond nearly didn't make it in time before the doors closed behind him.

Staggering a little as he landed on the sidewalk, Desmond looked over to see the outline of Kaczmarek's arm silhouetted against the morning sky as he pointed towards a sign down the street.

"There. $20 per person, per night."

"It looks like a shithole."

"You want the Ritz, you pay for it, Princess."

"Technically you're not paying for this, the people you robbed are."

"They don't have refined tastes. It's either this or we get on another bus and you carry on drooling all over my shoulder." He walked off briskly before Desmond had a chance to respond.

Desmond nearly fell asleep against the wall of the hotel reception while Kaczmarek was paying, and when he opened his eyes he found the guy behind the counter giving him a dirty look. He struggled against the wait of the almost pathological exhaustion, but in the end Kaczmarek had to half-drag him to their room.

"One bed?" Desmond mumbled sleepily as Kaczmarek pushed him through the door.

"It was cheaper that way."

No wonder the receptionist had given him a dirty look.

Desmond fell onto the bed, ready to pass out blissfully, and groaned when he felt a tugging on his feet. "Gerroff."

"You're not sleeping in those clothes. They're the only set you have and I'm not scavenging in any more launderettes."

Kaczmarek removed his shoes and pulled Desmond into an upright position. Realising that it was the fastest way to get peace, Desmond found the hem of the hockey jersey and tugged the oversized piece of clothing over his head. Before he had even finished he felt fingers tugging at the button on his borrowed jeans and tensed in shock, but Kaczmarek seemed not to see anything strange in removing another man's clothes.

"Lift," he said, after undoing the zip. Desmond braced his arms on the bed and raised his hips, allowing Kaczmarek to slide the jeans down his legs. He tossed them to one side and then shoved Desmond ungraciously back down onto the bed. "Now you can sleep."

He fell asleep the second his head the pillow, stirred a few moments later as he felt Kaczmarek slide in next to him, and then easily sank back into unconsciousness.


	12. Chapter 12

It was dark when Desmond awoke, but that didn't mean much at this time of year - the light had probably started fading around late afternoon. The bits of his body that were exposed to the air informed him that the heating still hadn't come on in the room, and likely never would. But that was all right, for underneath the covers there was a general, gentle warmth radiating from Clay's body to compliment the direct line of heat flowing out of him and down the conduit of Desmond's arm from where they were connected, where Desmond's hand rested palm-down on the bare skin of Clay's sternum, underneath his T-shirt.

Yes. Well, to understand _that_ you'd need to backtrack a few hours.

* * *

"Fuuuuuck!" Desmond hissed under his breath, padding back to the bed as quickly as he could to escape from the bitter chill pervading the room. When his bladder had woken him up a few minutes ago and he'd felt the cold of the room on his face, he'd tried desperately to fall asleep again, to put off the moment when he'd be forced to get out of bed. In the end he had gritted his teeth, slid out from under the duvet and walked across the cold floor of the bedroom (tiled rather than carpeted, presumably for ease of cleaning) and relieved himself as quickly as possible in the dank cave of the adjoining bathroom.

As he lifted the sheet Kaczmarek had groaned in protest at the rush of cold air, and then elbowed Desmond lethargically in the stomach when their toes connected." Go 'way, you're freezing!" he mumbled.

"Tell me about it," Desmond replied, but moved away as far as possible so that the covers settled in the space between them, creating a barrier. "Can't fucking believe you picked a hotel with no heating," he complained sulkily.

"How was I s'posed to know? God, if I knew you were going to be such a little bitch about it I'd have made you sleep outside."

"Fuck you, Kaczmarek."

"My name's Clay, asshole."

"Clay Asshole? Man, talk about bad parenting."

Silence filled the room, and it suddenly hit Desmond that it was a pretty terrible idea to make parent digs at someone when you knew nothing about their background. For all he knew Clay's parents might be dead. Perhaps he'd run away from home like Desmond had. Perhaps he'd been abused. Fuck.

"Clay?"

"Trying to sleep over here."

"I'm sorry."

Clay let out a huff of breath. "It's fine, I should have asked the guy at reception about heating..."

"No, I'm sorry for ... what I said about your name."

There was another long silence that Desmond optimistically took for an acceptance of the apology. He had begun to wonder if Clay had fallen asleep when...

"Well, shit."

"Hmm?"

"It really is fucking cold in here."

Desmond hesitated for a moment before asking his next question. They were already two men - mostly naked - sharing one bed, and he wanted to still be able to look Clay in the eye tomorrow. But thinking pragmatically, neither of them would be able to get back to sleep when it was this cold, no matter how tired they were. The facts were that Desmond's current location felt arctic and only a foot away Clay was curled up, warm and enticing...

"Look, I hate to ask, but..."

The pause was barely noticeable as Clay filled the silence immediately with a bubble of laughter. "Desmond," he said. "You just saved my life. You're entitled to ask me for pretty much anything."

Desmond drew in a breath sharply, frightened by the collision between the curl of pleasure and intrigue and possibility that hit him with those words, and repulsion at what they implied. "Don't," he said sharply, propping himself up on one elbow.

Caught by a shaft of light from a street lamp outside, Clay's brow was furrowed in confusion as his cool eyes searched Desmond's face for an explanation. "Don't?" he repeated.

"You don't owe me anything. I didn't free you from Abstergo just so that you could end up ... enslaved to me by gratitude. If I ask you for something and you don't want to do it, just say so."

Clay looked amused, and for the first time his expression actually softened a little. "Alright. So what were you going to ask me?"

Desmond flexed his toes nervously. "Can I touch you?" he asked, not quite meeting Clay's eyes.

The half-second silence that followed was achingly long.

"Touch me?"

"It's just that I'm so cold and it makes sense for us to ... to combine our body heat..."

"I'm not really comfortable with that, Desmond."

"Right, right, of course. Forget about it, I can deal." He turned over and curled his body around the knot of humiliation in his stomach.

"No, no, Desmond, don't! I..." Clay voice as desperate and Desmond felt a sudden shock of warmth on his back as Clay broke through the barrier of bedclothes between them, filling the pocket of air between the two of them with the heat from his skin. "Look at me."

Reluctantly, Desmond turned over again and found Clay's face a few inches away from his, his lips slightly parted in distress. "It's not you," Clay insisted. "I told you some of the side effects of staying in the Animus for too long. Well, this is another one. I told you that pain isn't really pain in there, that touch isn't really touch, taste ... whatever. Compared to that, real life just seems too loud and intense and present, every one of the senses is more vulnerable, more exposed. _That's_ why we get insomnia." His eyes were wide and desperate, and he spoke with the air of a stoner trying to convey the experience of a particularly intense drug trip. "That's why we're feeling the cold so badly, because we're not used to it, and if you touched me, Desmond, it wouldn't solve our problem. Something like that would be too much to sleep through."

Desmond turned this over in his mind. "You know, I wasn't suggesting..." _Don't say it, Miles, you sound ridiculous_. "Cuddling, or ... or spooning, or whatever. Just, um..." He lifted a hand hesitantly, and then placed it on Clay's stomach, feeling the warmth of him seeping through the material and immediately taking the edge off Desmond's discomfort.

Clay closed his eyes and made an odd humming sound low in his throat, not sounding displeased by the contact. Firmly taking Desmond's wrist, he dragged the hand down, over his stomach, and towards the waistband of his boxers...

_Oh god. Is he...?_

...Then upwards again, underneath his T-shirt, so that the fingers brushed over his bare skin. Desmond felt Clay's abdominal muscles hitch and tense, and wondered whether his hand was cold or whether it was simply hypersensitivity to human contact. Clay finally released him, leaving his palm resting just over his heart, so that Desmond was able to feel every ratchet of tension fall as the other man relaxed.

"Yeah," Clay said. "That should be OK. How do you feel now?"

Desmond tried to swallow the dryness in his mouth. "Warmer."

"Me too. I figure we have ... about three hours before we have to move. I'm going to get some more shuteye. Oh, and if you wake me up again to bitch about how cold you are, I'm gonna knee you in the balls." He closed his eyes and seemed to fall asleep almost instantly.

* * *

Some things you just don't want to wake up to, and blood on the sheets is one of them. Desmond had somehow managed to extricate his hand from underneath Clay's shirt without waking him up, and the blood was the first thing that he saw upon moving away. There was an instinctive moment of panic: a jolt to his heart that made him more alert than anyone who had been asleep ten seconds ago had any right to be.

The blood was coming from Clay's arm, and a quick glance over his torso revealed that the bleeding wasn't just limited to the arm nearest Desmond. Clay's self-inflicted injuries had re-opened in the night and looked sore and angry, on the verge of infection.

Desmond dressed quickly and left a note saying that he would be back in twenty minutes, writing down the current time for safety's sake. The last thing he wanted was for Clay to wake up alone and not know why.

There was a drugstore on the corner and Desmond used Clay's stolen money to buy bandages, gauze, antiseptic and painkillers. His stomach growled petulantly as he browsed the aisles and it occurred to him that it had been about a day since he had last eaten. The drugstore didn't exactly have fresh fruit and vegetables on offer, but he tossed some junk food into the basket: chips, candy bars, crackers, cereal, soda. Cheap, high calorie, full of preservatives in case they didn't have a chance to stop for groceries again in the next few days.

Desmond did all this in a funk, blocking out all the thoughts that were struggling to remind him just how supremely fucked up his life was. He was on the run from an organisation with more resources than he could even begin to contemplate, and his only ally was a mentally unstable man he barely knew, who swerved between apparent normality and fits of violence both to others and to himself. To top it all off, Desmond had spent the night with his hand resting on that man's heart, and they both knew that it had been about more than just the cold.

He walked down the street with a plastic bag in each hand, and when he reached the hotel he saw a figure leaning against the wall of the building, lit from overhead by a streetlight, his head turning left to right as he searched for someone.

Closer to, Desmond realised that it was Clay. He had ditched the T-shirt and had thrown on only his button-down shirt and jeans. His hair was dark with the weight of water, presumably from a recent shower, and Desmond could make out small fragments of ice starting to form in between the strands. He cursed under his breath. Hell, he cursed aloud.

"Fucking hell, Clay, what are you doing out here? You're going to freeze."

That there was no comeback unnerved Desmond, and he struggled for a moment to open the hotel door whilst juggling the groceries, waiting pointedly for Clay to go in before following after. The receptionist emerged from his detective novel to give them another suspicious look over the counter and Desmond realised that they weren't exactly behaving like two people on the run were supposed to. Or rather, they _were_, and that was exactly the problem.

It didn't help that the sleeves of Clay's shirt were dotted with blood, and when Desmond sat him down on the bed and pulled back one of the sleeves he saw fingernail scratch marks around the edges, marking where they had been pulled open again recently. Had that happened last night, or while he was in the shower?

Desmond sat back on his heels and blew out his cheeks as he released a long breath. He cast his eyes downwards and shook his head.

"Don't say it," Clay warned dully.

"What was I going to say?"

"That you can't deal with this. You need me to not be crazy for a bit."

"Crazy I can deal with. This is just stupid. Stupid I'm not going to tolerate. Roll up your sleeves."

Clay had to unbutton the cuffs first, and even then he winced as the coarse material dragged over the open contusions and lacerations. Desmond couldn't look him in the eye just yet, so he reached into the grocery bag and pulled out the rough first aid kit he had cobbled together. At least the shower meant that the wounds would be relatively clean.

He soaked some gauze in antiseptic and swiped it briskly over Clay's forearms, knowing that it would hurt whether he did it quickly or whether he took half an hour over it. Still, Clay's occasional whimpers and hisses of pain were difficult to bear, as was the sight of the injuries close up, high definition, far too much detail, enough information for Desmond to reenact in his head exactly how they had been brought about: a calculated slam against the sharp corner of a corner table; a worrying of teeth that used the sharp canines to cut and incisors to tear; a fist slammed into a mirror and fingers desperately using the shards to rip at the skin before Abstergo staff had presumably intervened.

There was a thickness in Desmond's throat when he said, "You told me last night that you're hypersensitive to touch, outside of the Animus."

"Yes."

"And pain?"

"Pain too."

Desmond looked up from where he was kneeling and found Clay's head bowed over him, over the mess of his arms and the wounds that would become lifelong scars. His eyes were dark and sad.

"These must have been..." Desmond couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't even begin to contemplate what the horrible injuries in front of him must have felt like when amplified by the side effects of the Animus program.

"Yes."

Some of the cuts were gaping, and required butterfly stitches to hold them closed. It was strange, after spending so long in the Animus as a killer and a force of destruction, to be piecing someone together again like this. When he had cleaned and repaired as best as he could manage with his limited knowledge of first aid, Desmond wrapped Clay's arms with a light bandage, tying it off instead of using one of the safety pins that he had bought; he didn't want to give Clay anything with a sharp edge right now.

"You're done," Desmond said, packing the materials away again and standing up. "We need to get moving..."

A hand came up and gripped his forearm, then Clay was in front of him: his eyes terrible and beautiful and his mouth a little open, as though he was about say something. For the first time Desmond truly felt the lingering effects of the Animus, as the fingertips pressed to the inside of his wrist felt almost unbearably warm, as though there was a current of electricity passing through them. Then the knuckles of Clay's other hand stuttered against Desmond's stomach as he brushed the back of them over the tensed wall of muscle and flesh there.

"Thank you," he said, and Desmond saw his adam's apple bob as he swallowed the next words. He released Desmond's arm and set about putting together their small collection of possessions.

When they checked out, the receptionist glared at Desmond again, apparently out of habit, and Desmond grinned back at him with deliberate belligerence.


	13. Chapter 13

"No planes, that's obvious. Neither one of us has ID and even if we did, using our real names would be suicide. We travel by train or coach, pay by cash. If they need a credit card, we use a different card each time and only use each card within an hour of acquiring it. We're going North-West."

"Why North-West?"

"Because right now we're South-East. North-West gives us lots of room to run."

"We could try to get into Mexico..."

"Not worth the risk. If we get caught by border control then it's as good as walking straight back into Abstergo."

Desmond stared out of the window in silence for a few minutes, watching the landscape drift by lazily as the train rattled its way to their destination. Wherever _that_ was.

"What about the Assassins?" he said at last. "They could protect us."

Clay laughed bitterly. "Yeah, it's easy to feel safe inside a cell. Thick stone walls, nice tough bars to keep your enemies out."

Desmond was about to argue when he remembered his own childhood, and the night he had run away like the inmate of a POW camp: chased by guards and dogs. There was a fine line between protection and imprisonment, and his father had crossed it...

"How did you know my father?" Desmond asked, wondering why it had taken him so long to remember this question.

"Ha! Guess my little outburst in the Animus gave that away, huh?"

"You didn't seem to remember him all that fondly."

"No offence, Desmond, but your father is probably the most ruthless and dangerous man I have ever met. What's scary is that once upon a time I looked up to him."

"So what happened to change your mind?"

Clay looked up and met Desmond's eye, disbelief written across his face. Suddenly his pale skin, the dark shadows under his eyes, the bandages protruding from his sleeves and the lines of pain and misery and madness around his mouth and eyes became far more pronounced. "Look at me," he said, giving a small and bitter laugh. "_This_ is what happened. I used to believe so strongly in the Assassins, in the Creed, in William Miles and his fucking dogma. I was an outcast my entire life and then suddenly I was somewhere I belonged, with a real family and a mentor who believed in me more than my own father ever had. I think that even if I'd known, back then, that Bill was just using me ... it wouldn't have changed anything. I still would have let him send me to Abstergo so that the Templars could use me up like they did, because when Bill Miles tells you that he's proud of you and that he believes in you, you'll do anything he says, and that makes him a million times worse than Warren Vidic with all his gloating and taunting. Bill Miles is evil, Desmond, he's pure fucking evil..."

Clay was nearly yelling now, his breathing ragged and his eyes hard and angry. Other people in the carriage were turning round to stare at him, and a mother opposite them covered her young son's ears while glaring at Clay with a combination of outrage and fear. Desmond, his mind still whirling, hurried to try and placate his friend.

"OK, alright. Evil dad. Got it. I'm feeling a bit Luke Skywalker over here..."

"I thought you wanted me to be honest."

"I did, I do. It's just weird, hearing him talked about like that. When I was growing up he was practically deified by the other people on the Farm. They thought he was infallible."

"He probably is. Bill is too smart to get caught with any flaws. It doesn't make him a good person, Desmond."

Clay stopped speaking then, looking as troubled as Desmond felt. He had vague memories of his early childhood, before the pressure to succeed in his training had become too strong, when his father would take him by the hand or put him on his shoulders as he walked through the forest. He had even been told bedtime stories about great Assassins of the past, and he had enjoyed hearing about their exploits as much as any normal child would have taken pleasure from Little Red Riding Hood or the Three Little Pigs. Had those early stories merely been the first stages of his father's attempts to indoctrinate him and mould him into a killer?

Had his father ever loved him, or merely used him?

"Je ne peux pas voir."

"Huh?" Desmond looked over at Clay, and realised that the man was gripping the armrests in panic, his eyes flicking from left to right with a disturbing blindness.

"Je ne peux vas voir! La fumée jaune! Je suis aveugle! Aidez-moi!"

With that, he leapt out of the seat, his arms clutching at the chairs and walls, and Desmond was forced to jump up and pin Clay's arms to his side in an attempt to prevent him from accidentally striking any of the other passengers. The woman with the young child gave a small scream and tucked the boy into her arms, reaching for the emergency cord.

"It's alright, it's nothing!" Desmond told her desperately, keeping his arms wrapped around Clay like a vice. "He's just a bit ... upset."

"People like him shouldn't be allowed on public transport!" she snapped at him indignantly. "I'm calling the guard."

"_Où est le médecin putain?_"

"Don't call the guard!" Mercifully, they were pulling into a station. "We're getting off here, I swear. Clay, come _on_."

He was prepared to drag the raving man off the train using sheer force, but then a strange thing happened: Clay's right hand found Desmond's right shoulder and he seemed to relax, passively waiting for instruction. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, Desmond walked forward and led his friend away like that, fingers digging into his shoulder in a silent gesture of trust. Navigating the turnstile in the station was tricky, as Desmond had to first swipe his ticket, move forward, then lean back and swipe Clay's ticket before helping move the metal bar round so that Clay could follow without meeting any barrier. The guard watched him suspiciously and Desmond shrugged in helpless apology before leading Clay away and out of the station.

As soon as they were safely outside, Desmond twisted out of Clay's grasp and dragged him into a corner of the car park. He shook the man's shoulders and glared into his creepy, unseeing gaze.

"If you're just fucking with me, Clay, I'm going to kill you."

"Ils nous bombardent! Ȏ mon dieu, nous allons mourir! Ȏ mon dieu, ô mère..."

He was weeping openly now, and Desmond realised with a pitch of dread that this wasn't acting or manipulation. His French was good enough to pick out mentions of smoke and bombs and God, and he didn't need language skills to detect the desperation and terror in Clay's voice. Helplessly, he drew the other man closer into a tight embrace, absorbing his thrashing and struggling and praying only that it would end.

_Let it end soon. I need him._

* * *

"It's called the Bleeding Effect."

Desmond nursed a bruise on his jaw where Clay's forehead had impacted during the struggle, and stared across the greasy table of the diner, scarcely able to believe how calm the man was now.

"I'm amazed I got away for as long as I did without it kicking in. Adrenaline, I guess."

"You were speaking French."

"One of my great-great-great grandfathers fought in the First World War. The Templars had me reliving his memories for about a week, but he died on the beaches at Normandy when he was nineteen. He'd received some Assassin training, but not enough." Clay ate a french fry nonchalantly. "You tend to relive a lot of deaths when the Bleeding Effect hits. I guess they leave bigger scars."

"'La fumée jaune'?" Desmond quoted.

"'The yellow smoke'. Mustard gas."

"Fuck." Desmond's food had gone cold, but he hadn't really had the stomach for it even when it was hot. "Is that going to happen to me?"

"Maybe. If it happens to us both at the same time then we're screwed," Clay said cheerfully.

Desmond considered this as he picked at his burger without enthusiasm: dissecting it and nibbling at the component parts. Finally he gave up and wandered over to the counter, grabbing a paper napkin to clean the sauce from his fingers.

There were two people there already, who had just made their orders. One of them - a blond-haired man with a loud, grating British accent - was complaining without restraint despite the occasional glares he was getting from the chef.

"-It's all bloody sweepings, Rebecca, and I doubt half of the so-called "meat" in here has ever even _seen_ an animal, let alone been part of one. If they didn't boil it in lard to kill off all the germs and bacteria then I doubt anyone would ever make it out of this place alive."

His friend, a young woman with a spiky black hairdo, rolled her eyes as if she'd heard it all before. "Just put ketchup on it if you don't like the taste."

"This is not about ketchup, it's about standards."

"I like the food here."

"Exactly my point."

She socked him in the arm and Desmond walked back to the table with a slight grin on his face.

Clay looked at him quizzically. "What's so funny?"

Gesturing towards the couple, Desmond replied, "Apparently we're eating sweepings."

Clay twisted round in his seat and his eyes landed on the two people. Even without looking at his face, Desmond could see the change in Clay's body as his muscles tensed up and Desmond felt his own body shift and tighten in response as he readied himself to either fight or run away. "What's wrong?"

The two people collected their food and turned away from the counter, and Clay immediately whipped back round and turned his face away from them, towards the window, his expression hard.

"They're Assassins," he muttered softly.

Desmond fought the urge to stare at them. "They don't look like Assassins," he countered, in the hope of a mistake.

"Trust me, I've seen them before. During my training."

"Will they recognise you?"

"I don't know. They haven't so far, but they haven't really been looking."

"Who are they?"

"I couldn't tell you their names. They were already part of the fold when I joined the Assassins, so I only ever saw them when they dropped by for briefings with your father."

Desmond looked at them askance, and felt the first twinges of temptation. Abstergo had an entire army at their disposal, and Desmond was frankly amazed that he and Clay had managed to get as far as they had without being caught again. The two of them had already been in a dire situation even before he had found out about this "Bleeding Effect" and the possibility of them both being struck by it simultaneously and left helpless. They had no plan, no papers, no real destination ... Hell, at this point they only had two shirts between them, and no prospect of getting more without robbing either pockets or dirty laundry.

Meanwhile, the Assassins had a global network, hundreds of potential safehouses, the means to provide false papers, guns, manpower, intelligence, tactics...

Clean shirts.

"I won't come with you."

"Huh?" Desmond looked back at Clay, trying and failing to hide the guilt from his expression.

"I can't stop you from telling them who you are, but give me a chance to leave first."

"I never said..."

"You were thinking it." Clay's mouth set in a stubborn line. "Go on, then. Run back to Daddy. I can take care of myself."

"You can...? Jesus!" Desmond had raised his voice without intending to, and he heard the two Assassins stop talking abruptly, saw them look over at him, saw the girl's brow furrow in thought. He stood up and grabbed Clay by the bicep, making sure to keep his face turned away from the Assassins. "Come on."

They left the diner and Desmond dragged Clay a little way down the street before turning to him and gripping him by the shoulders, shaking him a little to force his gaze upwards when he tried staring obstinately at the ground.

"Listen to me, Clay Kaczmarek. We're in this together and we have been ever since we met in Abstergo. I would rather sleep in shitty hotel rooms and wear stupid fucking penguin jerseys for the rest of my life than take off without you."

Clay scowled at him, squirming like an angry cat until he broke free of Desmond's grip. "I don't _need_ you, Miles."

"Well _I_ need _you_!" Desmond held up a hand before Clay could interrupt. "I know, alright, I know that's something that my father would say, because he's an asshole and he likes to manipulate people, but it's the goddamn truth, alright? Right now you're the only friend I've got, and if it comes down to a choice between my father and mother and the Order and the Creed on one side, and you on the other, I'd pick you. Every time."

Clay stared at him. "Even though I'm crazy?"

"And stupid. Don't forget stupid."

"You'd pick crazy and stupid over your own family?"

"We'll come up with our own creed. The Crazy-Stupid Creed. I'll build us a clubhouse."

Clay laughed, then covered his mouth as if the sound had taken him by surprise. Desmond grinned at him, but then over his shoulder he saw two figures emerging from the diner and starting to walk towards them.

There was no way they could have eaten that fast, no matter how much ketchup they used.

"I hate to say this," Desmond murmured, trying not to show alarm on his face. "But I think we have to start running again."

"After you, I insist."

But in the end it was Clay who took the lead.


	14. Chapter 14

The chase shouldn't have been as exhilirating as it was. No sooner had Desmond started to run than he heard the soft twin thud of sneakers behind him as the two Assassins began sprinting down the street, yelling words that he couldn't quite make out, and when he used a free hand to tip a trash can over and into their path he heard the action rewarded a few seconds later as the British man cried out and tumbled over it with a metallic clang. Clay laughed and grabbed Desmond's arm, dragging him into a side-alley.

"Up!" he called over his shoulder, throwing himself bodily onto a ladder and ascending it with the grace and speed of a spider. Desmond followed as fast as he could, but he was only halfway up before he felt slim fingers grab hold of his jeans at the ankle. Instinctively he kicked out and felt a pang of guilt as another voice, female this time, cried out in pain at the double impact of his shoe and the cold asphalt below.

Desmond hesitated for a split second, but then Clay grabbed his arm again and dragged him onto the roof. "Better hope you picked up something in the Animus," he said ominously, before releasing Desmond and sprinting to the edge of the roof. He leapt with catlike agility onto the surface of the next building and Desmond followed him without a second thought, shutting out any hesitation or fear and letting the memory in his muscles carry him through the jump easily. He caught up with Clay just as he reached the next gap between buildings and they traversed it together, so close that Desmond could hear the steady inhale and exhale of breath as Clay measured out his oxygen with the care of a man who knows he will need every drop of it he can get.

* * *

"I'm wearing ... an anorak, Rebecca!" Shaun panted, throwing himself clumsily from a roof onto a fire escape, landing awkwardly with the rail digging into his armpits, and dragging himself over the barrier and onto the stairs, running up after his friend and yelling in order to be heard over the clanging of their feet on the metal steps. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to chase people in an anorak?"

"So take it off!" She clambered up the ladder and onto the roof, squinting in the sun to try and spot their quarry.

"I like this anorak!"

"Really?" she asked with absent-minded incredulity. Shaun scowled at her, but before he could retort she pointed to a warehouse rooftop about 200 yards away. "There."

She took off running and Shaun sighed before following her as fast as he could, anorak and all. They had to drop back onto the streets a few times, then find a high enough vantage point or an open space where they could spot the two fleeing men again. Shaun turned the problem over in his mind: why was Miles running? He had recognised the boss' kid from photographs in a file that had been made available to all the Assassins ever since Miles Jr. had run away at sixteen, but the man had changed a lot in the interim decade and if he and the blonde guy hadn't behaved so oddly then Shaun would most likely have dismissed the similarity. The fact that the two of them were running meant that either they believed he and Rebecca were Templars...

Or Miles and his friend were working for the other side.

"This is useless," he panted as they crawled onto the roof of a department store. "We're never going to catch up..."

He spotted Miles and the other man on a rooftop about a street away, but as he spoke something extremely odd happened: Miles put on an extra burst of speed, hurled himself at his friend and tackled him to the ground in an impressive but painful-looking stunt.

Rebecca skidded to a halt and stared open-mouthed as the two men slowly began disentangling themselves from the awkward, bruising heap they had landed in.

"What the hell did he do that for?" Shaun asked disbelievingly.

"Doing us a favour, maybe? Let's go."

* * *

"...The fuck was that all about?" Clay groaned, rolling out of Desmond's grasp and clutching at his tender ribs, checking for any breaks.

"Excuse me for saving your goddamn life!" Desmond retorted, moving into a crouch but keeping his head low, searching the rooftop landscape for their assailant.

"Saving it from what?" Clay still sounded angry but had enough sense to keep his head low, scanning around them for danger.

"There was a guy," Desmond insisted, waving a finger at where he had last seen the shadowy silhouette of the man. "He had a bow and arrow, he was firing ... He must have barely missed you."

Clay stared at him for a moment, then sighed and stood up, dusting off his knees, lifting his head directly into the line of fire. Desmond gaped at him, then tried desperately to drag him to the ground again.

"Are you insane? He's still out there!"

"There's no one there, Desmond. I know we're in Georgia but I don't think the rednecks use longbows to keep tourists off their roofs."

Desmond considered this for a few seconds, then groaned as he stood up. "Bleeding Effect?"

"Bleeding Effect. Nice timing, Miles."

He could hear a pounding of feet, distant but not distant enough, as the Assassins continued to give chase, calling out words that Desmond couldn't quite hear. He threw himself into a sprint, praying that his feet would prove swifter than the Jerusalem guards...

_What?_

All around him chimneystacks were morphing and losing their solidity, becoming shadowy figures that rose up with bows and poised arrows, releasing barbs that flew thick in the air around Desmond's head without ever seeming to touch him. He ducked and dodged as he ran, preparing for the puncture of skin that he would surely feel at any moment.

Clay cursed as he noticed Desmond's strange performance, but Desmond was more distracted by the uncertain state of Clay's left arm and the manner in which his hair and skin were darkening and his beard lengthening.

"Are the visions fading?" Clay asked.

"They worsen, Malik!"

"Shiiit..." Clay had to swerve suddenly to avoid colliding with a water tower, slamming his hand against it in frustration as he passed. "Try to focus!"

Desmond formulated a retort, which came out as: "!هم في كل مكان !هؤلاء الأوغاد"

"You're focusing in the wrong direction, goddamit!"

"!ننكب !أسفل صديق قديم"

Malik was struggling now, his missing arm (_wait, no_...) still throwing him slightly off balance, but Altaïr himself was stumbling as the surface he was running on kept shifting and changing: unreliable, uncertain. He wanted to stop and to clear his head of the doubts that kept nagging at him like a reminder of a task forgotten, but the guards were close behind them and their arrows grazed the side of his face, whistling in his ears. They were fast, but Altaïr was faster - one of the fastest Assassins of his day - and he pulled ahead, laughing in triumph when he heard them fall behind and curse his name as the reservoir of breath in their lungs began to betray them. Finally he saw the rooftop entrance to the Assassin's Bureau and with Malik at his heels he leapt-

"No! Desmond, _no_!"

But the ivy-bound trellis vanished beneath his feet, leaving behind only empty air and, far away in the distance, the rough, unforgiving grey of concrete.

Too far.

Too distant.

Altaïr's arms flailed, chasing away the ghost of his mind until all that was left was Desmond, falling.

There was **impact**. There was pain. There was nothing.


	15. Chapter 15

**Introductory notes:** _I wish I'd saved the original drafts of_ Thirty-Six _and_ Mad To Live, _which were a great deal smuttier than the versions that eventually got published. If I'd saved them I could have released a separate fic called_ 'Desmond and Clay: The Porn Years!' _Ah, regrets. I'll warn you in advance that_ Synchronous_ is soon going to start earning its M rating in ways that the previous two stories never did, but I'll try to keep things classy._

_Feedback is love, so many thanks to all my reviewers and those who favourited this story._

* * *

"We lost them."

Even in the bitterly cold weather, Shaun's clothes were drenched with sweat underneath his anorak, and he had a horrible feeling that it would quickly turn into cold sweat now that they had stopped moving. He bent over and rested his hands on his knees, trying to get his breath back.

Rebecca kicked the curb in frustration. "We were right behind them! They must have dropped into a side alley or something."

"We've searched every side alley in a 10 mile radius," Shaun stated dramatically.

"We looked in about four of 'em, you big baby, but by now they've had enough time to travel at least a mile, and they could have gone in any direction."

Shaun groaned and shook his head, straightening up. "So basically, the only thing we got out of this was a leisurely morning jog?"

"Pretty much."

"I didn't even get to eat my hot dog."

"I thought you said it was just sweepings, anyway."

"You've eaten at that place more than once."

Rebecca looked up sharply; the last sentence hadn't come from Shaun, who was staring off to one side with his mouth slightly open. She followed his gaze and saw the blond man who had been with Miles, stepping a little clumsily out of the shade of a nearby side-street. He had blood on his shirtfront, hand and sleeve, and a little smear of it next to his mouth, but he didn't seem to be physically injured beyond the slight limp of a sprained ankle."

"Back in the diner, you," he nodded at Rebecca, "said that you liked the food there. That means you've eaten there before, which means that you either live around here or you've been staying here for a while." He was talking quickly, and a slightly desperate glint in his eye betrayed the calm tone of his voice. "Two Assassins in one city? It could be coincidence, but more likely you're part of a team based at an Assassin Den around here. Last time I was in one of those places they had a fully equipped infirmary, complete with medical teams, because you can't take injured Assassins to a normal hospital, not when the Templars run the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world and keep tabs on any registered medical facility that uses their products. Does your Den have an infirmary."

"Uhhh..." Rebecca seemed too stunned by the onslaught of words to answer, so Shaun intervened.

"Yes," he said stiffly. "We have an infirmary. It's not as big as some of the others but the medics are second to none."

"Call them. Send transport."

Shaun bristled. "Now hang on a minute! You just made us chase you halfway across this bloody city and now you stand there trying to give us orders..."

"If you think it will get your medics here faster, tell them that William Miles' son just fell off a three storey building." Calmly, he reached behind his back and pulled a pistol from his belt, raising it and pointing it with deadly precision at Shaun's face. "If it'll help you _dial _faster, visualise a clock ticking down the seconds between now and when I pull the trigger."

Shaun swallowed hard and slowly reached into his pocket to retrieve his phone, marvelling that just a minute ago his biggest problem in life had been cold sweat.

"Countdown's started. I'm not going to tell you what number it started from or how fast I'm counting, but let's just say I hope you have the Den on speed-dial."

Seven minutes later, an ambulance pulled up to the curb.

* * *

Desmond opened his eyes and was annoyed to find that he was wearing a mask. He hadn't worn a mask since that Halloween party at Bad Weather in 2009, and even then it had only covered up his eyes, leaving his mouth free to flirt with the patrons and - towards the end of the night - sip at cocktails that he'd mixed himself. This mask covered only his mouth and was an ugly plastic thing with a tube sticking out of it and winding somewhere behind his head. He opened his mouth to object but all that came out of it was a shallow, hacking cough, and in his peripheral vision he saw something red spatter against the inside of the transparent shell over his mouth.

Was that...?

He was rocking from side to side. Was he in a ship? Images drifted through his mind: visions of the ships at Acre. Where was he sailing to? He couldn't recall seasickness ever being this painful.

Desmond realised that he could only see out of his right eye. There was a second of panic before he realised that the other eye was simply covered up by some white material that was being pressed to the side of his head. At least, it _had_ been white. A new colour was oozing across it now. He tried to sit up, but from the neck upwards he was imprisoned in a plastic cage, and the smallest effort towards movement sparked fresh pain all over his body.

Where was Clay? He drew in a slow, whistling breath and attempted to ask, but the question was muffled by the stupid mask and someone was shushing him, telling him to relax, give him a dose of morphine, he's going into shock, how the fuck are we stuck in traffic with the siren on, his pulse is rising, BP is dropping, more pressure, more pressure, don't move him, don't move him, watch his back, his neck, hold him still, drive slow, drive fast or he's going to-

Desmond's lazily wandering eye caught sight of a metal tray hanging on the wall, its highly reflective surface swaying hypnotically with the movement of the vehicle. They braked slowly to a halt, and suddenly the tray was twisted in such a way that Desmond was able to get a good look at his own body.

A second later he found out that he could no more scream than he could talk.

* * *

Shaun hadn't been lying when he'd said that the infirmary at the Atlanta Assassin Den wasn't large; there were only two beds in there and one of them was currently holding a long-term occupant. Dr Gregson stated in very terse terms that the remaining bed needed to be kept clean and empty in the case of another emergency like that which had so tragically landed Mr Miles...

Clay Kaczmarek walked away before he finished speaking.

Desmond was not in a coma, but in the first few days he was unconscious more often than he was awake. The pain wore him out, and he used his moments of lucidity to beg for medication that would return him to the bliss of sleep. When he saw that the drugs bore an Abstergo logo, he laughed as strongly as any man with a recently drained pulmonary edema was capable of.

He wouldn't remember that later on. The first solid memory he was able to recall after accidentally leaping off the building was waking up to find a pair of blue eyes watching him carefully with a dryness and redness that suggested a long vigil.

"Cl-" His mouth was so dry. He licked his lips with a dry tongue and forced some saliva in his mouth before trying again. "Clay."

"Present."

"Clay, you..." Swallow, try again. "You grew a beard."

"Yeah, apparently this is what my stubble looks like when it grows up."

"It looks ... fucking terrible on you."

"But Desmond, the beard is a symbol of my intense concern and love for you."

"I'm so ... so ... sorry."

"I can shave it off if it's disturbing you."

"It really is. I think ... that beard might be ... the worst possible outcome ... of me falling off a building."

Clay grinned and handed Desmond a glass of cool water from the table next to his bed. It tasted better than the sweetest wine and it was drained in seconds, Clay taking the cup back from his fingers when he was done.

"Where did you find the time to grow a beard?" Desmond asked, suddenly confused.

Clay's relaxed expression tightened almost imperceptibly. "At some point in the two weeks since you threw your dumb ass off a roof," he replied.

"Two weeks?" Desmond tried to process this, turning his head gingerly to take in his surroundings. "Are we in a hospital?"

Apparently not, judging by the way in which Clay's eyes had darkened further. "Assassin Den," he replied.

Desmond struggled to process this, and then groaned. "Oh God."

"Don't worry about it."

"No, no, no ... You didn't want..."

"It was a choice between this, handing you over to a hospital and therefore back to Abstergo, or leaving you to die." Clay must have realised how bitter he sounded, because he made a visible effort to adopt a kinder expression. "How do you feel?"

Desmond winced and tried to shift his weight. "I've got pins and needles in my leg."

A soft chuckle came in response. "Well, you're half right."

It took a moment for Desmond to process this, and when he finally managed it the realisation caused him to groan and drop his head back onto the pillow. "Go on. Tell me how bad it is."

Clay walked to the end of the bed and picked up a metal clipboard hanging on the end rail, clearing his throat dramatically. "Want me to start from your head or your toes?"

"Toes."

"You broke two of them, both in your left foot. You also broke your right ankle and your left tibia and fractured your left femur. You ruptured one of your kidneys, broke four ribs and punctured one of your lungs. Severe bruising along the carpal bones of both hands, a broken left thumb and index finger, dislocated your right shoulder and fractured your skull. Mercifully the damage to your face was mostly superficial so you're as pretty as ever." The words were light-hearted but all the humour had gone from Clay's face and voice now, and he put the clipboard back in place carefully. "You scared the shit out of me, Miles," he said harshly.

"I scared the shit out of me too."

"I saw you hit the ground and I thought for sure that you were dead. You managed to land on your feet and sort of roll with the impact, but if you hadn't then you'd be a corpse right now." He was keeping his distance now, Desmond noticed, and setting his jaw in a hard, defensive line. Perhaps it was just as well that Desmond was rendered immobile by the various casts on his body, for otherwise he didn't know if he'd have had the strength to resist getting up and embracing Clay for his loyalty, for his intelligence, for how much he cared...

"My father!" Desmond exclaimed suddenly, feeling his weakened muscles tense a little. "Is my dad here?"

"No. He hasn't been here."

"Did they ... Did they contact him."

"I can't imagine they'd have forgotten."

A thick silence pervaded the room.

"Maybe he's somewhere where they can't get through to him..."

"Doubtful," Clay interrupted evenly.

Well, there it was. They'd told Bill Miles that his son had been found again after all these years, and was critically injured. Desmond could almost see the conversation playing out in his head: his father would have asked _how_ critically injured, and they would have said his condition was serious but no longer life-threatening. Then Bill Miles would have thanked them for letting him know, always courteous, and asked them to keep him updated on Desmond's progress. Maybe he'd drop by the next time he got a break from whatever work he was doing, though it was unlikely that the break would happen soon or last for any significant length of time.

"I'm kinda tired, Clay. You mind if I go back to sleep for a bit?"

"Knock yourself out."

"Ha-ha."

He assumed that Clay would leave, but the last sensation he felt before sliding back into unconsciousness was a warm, steady hand resting on his left arm, over his tattoo, and a slightly callused thumb settling upon his pulse point as though looking for reassurance there.


	16. Chapter 16

The Den didn't have a physiotherapist, but Dr Gregson gave Desmond general advice on how to speed his recovery and Clay aided him when he began using crutches to get around. Desmond noticed that, aside from the abrasive personality that seemed set to stick around, Clay became marginally more relaxed as the days since his last session in the Animus passed. He continued to get hit with the Bleeding Effect at times - they both did - but his moments of full breakdown were starting to become a thing of the past. On occasion, though, Desmond would see him scratching or running his fingers over the scars on his arms with an unnerving wistfulness.

He learned that the two Assassins who had chased them over the rooftops were called Rebecca and Shaun, and that there were about twenty Assassins total in the small Den that had been converted from an old apartment building. Desmond managed to settle into an easy rapport with some of them, but Clay shunned any attempts at contact and the two of them usually ended up eating at their own table, away from the others.

When Desmond first started moving around on crutches, he noted a recurrent twinge of pain in his back. He assumed that it was simply a side effect of spending so long in bed, and took mild painkillers to manage the discomfort.

He had been walking to the mess with Clay, discussing in low voices how long it would be before they were able to leave the Den and set out on their own, when Desmond felt a sudden, excruciating stab in his lower back that cause his entire body to twist and collapse to the ground before Clay could catch him.

When Desmond woke up he was back in the infirmary, and Clay was by his bedside wearing a slightly disturbing grin.

"Welcome back, Desmond. You want to see something cool?"

Desmond sat up slowly onto the pillows, feeling a tenderness in his back that was covered by a small swathe of gauze. Clay reached over and picked up a metal tray from a nearby table, bringing it round and presenting it to Desmond as though seeking his approval. There was an unpleasant-looking greyish-pink blob in the tray, sitting in a small pool of blood.

"Please tell me that's not lunch."

"Nope." Still grinning, Clay held the tray a little closer.

"Well, what the fuck is it?"

"It's your kidney."

After processing this, Desmond gave a groan and fell back onto the pillows. "Could you get my kidney out of my face now?"

"Well that's not very nice, turning away your own flesh and blood." Clay set the tray down again, mercifully away from Desmond's line of sight.

"Why is my kidney on a tray and not inside me, anyway?"

"Turns out it never fully recovered after you landed on it. Doc had to take it out."

Desmond soon discovered that life with one kidney was pretty much the same as life with two; the idea that one of his organs was gone was more difficult to adjust to than the physicality of it. Aside from what Clay came to call "the kidney thing", Desmond's recovery was almost miraculously smooth and after two months the only bone that had not yet healed was his tibia.

He was hobbling back from a session with Dr Gregson when he found Clay leaning against the wall outside his bedroom looking introspective, something that rarely led to good things. He nodded at Desmond, and then asked if they could talk inside.

"Of course."

Desmond's room was pretty sparse, since they'd both come to the Den with almost no possessions. The Assassins had given him second-hand clothes to wear: simple outfits that could be worn whilst running and climbing - the modern equivalent of the robes that Altaïr and his order had worn - but Desmond was unlikely to start running again any time soon. Clay looked around the small space contemplatively before sitting down in the hard wooden chair. Desmond set his crutches aside and eased onto the bed.

"What's-"

"I'm leaving."

Desmond stared at him, not sure if he had heard correctly. "Clay, what are you...? We said we'd wait until I could walk again before we took off."

"Without crutches? That'll be at least a couple more months." Clay sounded almost accusing, as if it was Desmond's fault the broken leg was not healing faster. "I can't wait that long. I want to visit my parents. I haven't contacted them in over two years so they probably think I'm dead or something."

Desmond mulled this over. He had eventually asked about Clay's parents and discovered that they were divorced. His father worked in construction and his mother was living with her new husband in Florida. Clay had been reluctant to talk about them beyond that, and Desmond had watched his mood darken immediately after their short conversation. He wondered if his questioning had contributed to this decision.

Clay looked resolved, and Desmond knew that he didn't have the skill of persuasion nor even the right to change his mind. "Alright," he said at last. "But I'm coming with you."

"No."

"Fuck that, Clay, I'm coming with you."

Clay made a noise of utter frustration and stood up, Desmond following him and balancing awkwardly on his good leg.

"Desmond, if we get attacked on the road then we're both screwed; you won't be able to run and I sure as well won't leave you behind. Besides, my father..." He grimaced. "My father might jump to the wrong conclusions if I show up with another guy in tow."

Desmond felt helpless and crippled, his leg like a dead weight dragging him down and away from Clay. It was stupid to have gotten this attached in the short time that they had known each other, but he seemed to have made an unconscious decision at some point that separating from Clay would mean disaster for both of them. He hated to think of his young, mentally-fragile friend making a journey like that on his own, with no one to watch his back, while Desmond stayed cooped up in safety like a child.

"You'd better come back. If you don't come back..."

"I will come back, I swear."

Desmond swiped a gaze over Clay's face as if trying to memorise the sharp blue eyes, the curve of his brow, the strong lips with the incongruously delicate Cupid's bow. There was a mixture of defensiveness, anger, and regret clouded over Clay's face and he was flexing his fingers in the manner he always did when stressed. Suddenly he stepped forward and Desmond found himself the captive of a tight, fierce embrace.

"I'm coming back," he murmured into the skin where Desmond's neck met his shoulder, and Desmond turned his a head a little and inhaled the intoxicating smell of Clay's hair and skin: the blend of soap and salt and metallic traces of rain from where he had been outside recently. Desmond experienced an absurd urge to hold him here, just here, like this, and never let him go. He wanted to beg Clay to stay here with him, but the demand was too humiliating and any attempt at holding him back would likely only drive his friend further away.

Desmond felt a sudden desire to beg Clay to sleep next to him tonight, just as they had done back at that hotel. More than once in the past few weeks Desmond had woken up to find his right hand palm-down on the mattress next to him, as if in memory of where it had once rested upon Clay's heartbeat. But the Assassin Den was warm and Clay had his own bed here, there was no need for...

Clay pulled away, sensing the weakness in Desmond's leg, and helped him to sit back down on the mattress. The space between them felt unbearably cold.

That was how they said goodbye. In the morning, Clay was gone before Desmond woke up.

* * *

Desmond yawned as he clicked his way down the hall on his crutches, so hungry that he was even looking forward to the simple, bland breakfasts provided by the Assassins. He recognised the blond-haired, bespectacled Assassin coming from the other direction and lifted his chin in greeting.

"Morning, Shaun-in'."

That probably deserved the eye-roll that it got. Shaun Hastings had for some reason decided to take a disliking to Desmond, though admittedly the two of them had kind of got off on the wrong foot. It probably didn't help that Desmond spent a lot of his time hanging around with Clay, who liked to casually bait Shaun whenever he was nearby. More often than not he would point two fingers at Shaun in the shape of a gun and make a clicking noise with his tongue, presumably some kind of in-joke, and the gesture would never fail to turn Shaun's cheeks pink with fury.

"Hullo, Desmond," he said with a huff of breath. "You'll forgive me if I don't stop to chat, but some of us around here actually have work to do beyond limping around and eating stuff."

"What kind of work?" Desmond asked, noting with satisfaction that, despite what he'd said, Shaun had stopped anyway. The man couldn't resist an argument.

"Oh, nothing too taxing, Desmond, just a little hobby of mine where I research and catalogue every birth, death, marriage, political changeover, rebellion, celebration, or potentially significant event that might possibly have been relevant to Assassin history for instant retrieval by the ignorami who get the opportunity to use the Animus program. Nothing of any importance, obviously."

Desmond stared at him. "You have an Animus? Like Abstergo?"

Shaun looked smug at the prospect of imparting information that Desmond was obviously oblivious too. "Not really. Our Animus is the next model up, far more efficient, thanks in no small part to myself. Rebecca worked on the design," he added begrudgingly.

The news filled Desmond with a sense of foreboding, compounded a second later when Shaun walked away, calling over his shoulder, "Oh, your old man arrived this morning. I think he wants to talk to you."

Desmond stood there for a long time. It was as though the air in the corridor had suddenly become very thin, making it difficult to breathe, and for a moment he wondered if his punctured lung was suffering a regression in the same way that his kidney had. He felt aches arising all over his body: in his lower back, in the fingers he'd broken, the shoulder he'd dislocated, the side of his head that had smashed onto the concrete and cracked a little from the impact. William Miles was here. Desmond was going to have to talk to him. The Assassins had an Animus, and William Miles was here to talk to him.

This was not good.

* * *

"Things have been pretty quiet, ever since ... Well, you know," Rebecca said, handing Bill a cup of coffee. He accepted it with a nod of thanks.

"I informed Lucy," he said, rested his upper lip on the edge of the mug. He felt the heat of the drink and decided to wait before sipping it, despite the weariness in his bones that could easily be cured by the injection of caffeine. "She seemed relieved, though by the sounds of it things are pretty hard at Abstergo. Vidic woke up and decided to blame the entire escape on her."

Rebecca smiled. "Vidic's smarter than he looks. It was Lucy who messed with the CCTV footage and kept the guards off their back, right?"

"She's good. I knew we could rely on her, though of course we would have got Desmond out ourselves eventually."

The black-haired girl nodded and began to fiddle with a circuit board that would eventually be placed inside the Animus 2.0. "How long since you last saw him?" she asked casually.

Bill was staring into the depths of his black coffee as if they were a window to the darkness of that night: running through the forest with his shoes slipping on wet leaves, following a trail that went cold at the edge of a raging river. "Almost ten years," he murmured, lost in the memory.

"You still mad at him?"

Bill looked up at that, but Rebecca's face was honest with no signs of ill intent. "Sometimes," he replied with a sigh. "But then I wonder if..."

He stopped abruptly when he heard a gentle clicking noise coming closer: crutches. Bill turned just as his son entered the room.

His son.

Desmond must have been changed by the fall, but Bill could see that he had grown up well. He still had his mother's dark hair and brown skin, though his face was a little pale and drawn, but there was a slightly ragged scar that ran vertically over his mouth which Bill had never seen before. Desmond was slightly taller than he had been at sixteen and had lost the gangly awkwardness of his initial growth spurt, but he'd maintained the fine bone structure which had caused the girls on the Farm to look twice at him and blush. He must have lost weight during the weeks of unconsciousness and the unimaginable strain on his body caused by his injuries, yet Bill could see the muscles standing out on Desmond's arms where they rested on his crutches. He seemed as strong and healthy as could be expected, but his eyes - Bill felt his heart sink - his eyes had not changed in ten years; they stared at him with that familiar mixture of anger, defiance, fear and rebellion that matched the obstinate set to his mouth which had infuriated Bill when his son was growing up. Absence, it seemed, had not made Desmond's heart grow fonder.

"Dad," he muttered, as though it had not been a decade since they had last greeted each other for breakfast. He immediately turned his head in a small gesture of dismissal and smiled. "Morning, Rebecca. I just saw Shaun."

"Oh yeah, he ate his Wheaties and went off in a merry mood."

"Did he leave any for me?"

"Afraid not, but there's always toast."

"There's always toast," Desmond repeated, to fill the silence. He made his way over to the table, sat down slowly and leaned his crutches carefully against a chair, reaching for the toast rack.

Bill watched him quietly for a few moments before speaking. "How have you been, Desmond?" he asked, in the same tone he might have used to inquire after a day of school.

His son swallowed a bite of toast, put the slice down and begin ticking items off his fingers. "Ran away. Became a bartender. Kidnapped. Forced to relive the memories of a twelth century ancestor. Ran away _again_." He ran out of fingers and had to switch to his other hand, sticking out the thumb he'd broken a few weeks ago. "Fell off a roof. How was your week, Dad?"

Desmond had never been great at hiding his emotions, and Bill could hear the anger creeping into his voice already. He ignored the question. "We need to discuss something."

"You want me to use the Animus."

The kid always been smart, much smarter than he liked people to know, and it seemed he'd figured this part out for himself. There was no point in denying it. "Yes."

"Not happening. This-" He patted a hand on his broken leg, "-This is all thanks to the Animus, did you know that? I got hit by the Bleeding Effect while I was running and tried to jump onto a rooftop that wasn't there."

"I'm aware of the side effects, Desmond."

"I bet you are."

"Listen to me, Desmond. If there was someone else we could use for this - anyone else - then we would, trust me." Judging by the way Desmond's expression hardened, it hadn't been the right thing to say. "You have a unique genetic make-up which means you'll be able to access every clue that we need-"

"Dad..." Desmond shook his head and laughed. "How is it that after twenty-five years you still haven't figured out that I don't give a shit about any of this stuff? I didn't want to be an Assassin when I was sixteen, I don't want to be an Assassin now, and I'm sure as hell not going back into that ... that _thing_, just so you can get all the historical fucking cereal tokens you need to come first in this stupid fucking feud you've got going on with the Templars. I. Am. Not. Interested. Got it?"

"Please," Bill's voice had gone quiet in the way it always did when he was angry. "Just this once, Desmond, could you try thinking about somebody other than yourself?"

"Uhhh, I'm just going to, um..." Rebecca seemed to have realised that she had unwittingly become trapped in the middle of what was about to become a heated family discussion. She began trying to surreptitiously gather up her things.

"Fuck you, Dad."

Desmond was breathing heavily, his eyes bright and hard and angry, his fingers clenching the edge of the table as he glared upwards, clearly relishing the catharsis of cursing at his father. Fighting down an urge to tell Desmond to go to his room, Bill tried a more reasonable approach.

"You're a grown man, Desmond, and I can't force you to do this. I wouldn't. That's what separates the Assassins from the Templars. All I ask is that you give me five minutes and let me explain what's at stake here. Five minutes."

He looked at his son with hard eyes, practiced now at the art of hiding his emotions. As Desmond thought the proposal over, Bill's eyes sought the smattering of fresh scarring on the side of his head that shone out where the hair had been cropped short for the stitches, and he noted how small movements caused Desmond to wince at the pain in his broken leg. His son. His infuriating, angry, wounded son, who might have been a doctor or a teacher or an engineer if he'd had the chance of a normal childhood with different parents. Instead he was an Assassin, whether he was ready to admit it or not, and Bill saw with an aching sadness that the bond between father and son was broken in a way he'd been too stubborn to acknowledge until now.

"Five minutes," Desmond conceded at last. "Make them count."


	17. Chapter 17

**Introductory notes**: _So, I'm sure you've all heard about the purge that's apparently going on. Perhaps it's for the best that the sex in the other stories got toned down as much as it did, because I don't have them backed up and if they'd been deleted then they would be gone forever. I considered editing out the more risqué stuff from_ Synchronous _as well, but instead I think I'm just going to keep it in and hope for the best. If the story gets deleted then I'll upload everything to Archive Of Our Own instead._

* * *

It was a weekday, so Harold Kaczmarek woke with his alarm and stared at the ceiling for three minutes before rolling out of bed. His head was fuzzy and as he stepped out of the bedroom his foot collided accidentally with Hank, the ancient German Shepherd who had been creaking along the hall. Hank whined and lowered his belly to the floor, and for a brief, cruel second Harold considered yelling at the animal and pretending that the blow had been deliberate. Instead he reached down, wincing at the pull in his back, and patted Hank gently on the flank until the old dog heaved himself cautiously to his feet and continued the slow journey down the hall and into the kitchen.

Harold poured some kibble into a bowl for the dog and then poured himself a finger of whiskey, swallowing it with barely a grimace. He smoked a cigarette and through the blueish haze watched Hank munching steadily through the food in his bowl. The animal was grey-muzzled, heavy around the middle, stiff with arthritis and seemed to limp on a different leg every day, but as far as Harold was concerned the dog could die of old age - fat and lazy and at home - rather than on some cold veterinarian table.

Work started at 8AM sharp. Harold walked into his office and yelled at his young receptionist over some trivial matter, secretly wondering whether or not she would ever consider sleeping with an old man like him. Probably not. He looked at the company accounts and immediately wished that he hadn't. Damn recession.

A client they'd had for almost eight years called to say that they would be terminating their contract within the month. His receptionist brought him a sandwich at lunch and her hands shook a little as she placed it on the desk, but not so much that he didn't notice the engagement ring on her finger. How long had that been there? It looked expensive. Probably she would quit soon, if her husband-to-be was so rich. It wasn't like Harold could afford to pay her a decent wage.

Harold had long ago stopped feeling relief when the work day ended at 5:30PM. It wasn't like he was coming home to anything.

Or so he thought. Today was different.

He trudged up the street, having taken the bus to work for the past six months to save on the cost of gas, and he saw that there was someone sitting on the porch, legs sprawled over the steps leading down to the lawn. Harold squinted into the sunset as he tried to identify whoever was trespassing on his property.

His vision wasn't what it used to be. He was only two houses away before he recognised his son.

Harold Kaczmarek stopped and stared.

Clay was wearing a khaki jacket with a hood and his hair was longer than it had been last time Harold had seen him, almost three years ago. Hank was lying on the steps next to him, his pointed head resting on his old master's knee and his pink tongue lolling out of his mouth in a pleased doggy grin as Clay scratched him absent-mindedly between the ears.

The mutt had shown up on their front lawn, all big eyes and floppy puppy legs, when Clay was a teenager. Harold had been ready to drown it when his son had offered to pay for dog food out of the money from his weekend construction job, and Harold had shrugged indifference and dragged an old blanket out of the garage so that the animal wouldn't try to sleep on the furniture. Old Hank was probably so senile now that he didn't even recognise the man who had once saved his life, but a scratch behind the ears was never unwelcome.

"Lost your key?" Harold grunted when he reached the porch, as though it had not been years since they'd spoken.

Clay looked up at his father and gently lifted Hank's head off his knee, setting it down to rest on the wooden slats on the porch. Hank closed his eyes and huffed out a melancholy breath as Clay stood up. "Hi, Dad."

"You got a hell of a nerve showing up here again after all this time." Harold unlocked the front door and kicked it open; the frame was swollen from the damp weather. "Place is falling apart. Don't have the money to fix it up."

"You're an engineer and you can't manage a bit of home improvement?"

Harold looked up, trying to conceal his surprise. The kid had developed a sharp tongue, and the slight sneering tone to the question made Harold's hackles rise instinctively. He was too worn out for a fight, though. Instead he slumped into the kitchen and flicked a switch that would boil up a mixture of stale water and limescale for coffee.

He turned and caught his son's eyes as they scanned the surfaces of his childhood home, taking in the slight haze of smoke in the air, the yellowing wallpaper, and the bottle of liquor on the side. The look of pity tugging at his eyes made Harold's blood boil; he didn't deserve this shit, not when it was the kid who had stopped sending the cheques needed to keep the household afloat.

Clay sat down in a chair and for the first time Harold saw the heaviness in his shoulders, the tightness of emotion in his face, the way his eyes flicked about the room almost invisibly and a nervous tic of clenching and unclenching his fists which had never been there before. He quietly ran down a mental checklist: drink? drugs? depression? AIDS? God, let it not be AIDS.

"What the hell happened to you, Clay?" he asked, in as gentle a voice as he could muster.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Was it those weirdos you were running around with? The ones using you as free labour?"

Clay squeezed his eyes shut tightly and Harold saw the first signs of crow's feet around them. "Yeah," his son said quietly. "Yeah, they turned out to be a bad crowd."

Harold shook his head, secretly enjoying the slightly rusty feeling of being a scolding parent again. "What did I tell you? Keep your head down, I said. Get into a decent engineering program, not this computer nonsense. Construction is where it's at..."

"Really? How's the business doing, Dad?"

Outside the door, they heard Hank's laboured breaths, the twittering of crickets and the local children yelling as they started up a game of hockey in the street.

"You were always a good kid, Clay. You had your head in the clouds, maybe, but you were never mean. 'My boy doesn't have a mean bone in his body', I'd tell people." The kettle whistled and spat weakly as it clicked off and Harold stood up to make the coffee while his son stared at the table, scratching at the insides of his forearms. Harold poured a splash of whiskey into his own coffee and didn't bother to try and hide the clink of glass on the edge of the cheap mug.

Hank padded into the kitchen, having found the porch too tiring. He sniffed at his empty bowl and then sat down by the table, resting his chin in its old place on Clay's knee and looking up with forlorn, red-rimmed, rheumy eyes. Clay petted his head and let the old dog drool on his jeans as Harold set the mug of coffee down in front of him and took the chair on the opposite side of the table, staring at the cracks in the surface for a moment before looking back up in his son.

Clay was now thirty years old, and without asking for details Harold knew that things had happened to him, probably quite terrible things judging by the lines of habitual pain around his mouth and the awful hardness in his eyes. No doubt Clay thought he wouldn't possibly remember what today was, but Harold remembered, just as he'd remembered last year, and the year before that, which was the first year when Clay hadn't come to visit him for some small celebration.

Harold stared at the oily swirls of alcohol in his coffee, and then raised it and clinked the edge of the mug against Clay's in a meagre toast.

"Happy birthday, son."

* * *

Desmond looked across the counter and wondered if this was the real reason that he had agreed to use the Animus again.

Oh, he knew it wasn't Clay. He knew it was just Malik. He also knew that it was pointless to search Malik's face for similarities to Clay's when the two men were separated by centuries, and in fact Clay was probably closer related to Desmond than he was to Malik.

"Not going to stab me for old time's sake, then?" he asked Malik, who kept his eyes on his paperwork and didn't respond. Desmond sighed and picked up the white feather from the desk, and as he settled into the lotus position he felt his mind drift away from the memory of Altaïr's meditation. It had been almost a week since Clay had left, and his absence was as palpable as a missing limb, or perhaps a missing kidney. All that Desmond had to hold onto was a vague promise that Clay would come back. When would he come back? A week? A month? Three years? Had the Templars caught up with...?

Desmond tried and failed to stop that thought before it was too late.

He was about to embark on the last of the nine assassinations that Al Mualim had tasked Altaïr with - Bill having somehow got his hands on the memory core from Abstergo's machine. Strange that he was capable of retrieving something that that from the Templars' stronghold, but he'd been unable to save his own son. Whatever. Desmond hadn't needed him, in the end.

The target was Robert De Sable, the man who had defeated Altaïr and killed Malik's brother, and despite himself Desmond was looking forward to the assassination. Altaïr himself was very different now from when Desmond had first begun reliving his memories: not humble, but not so arrogant either, and far more introspective. Altaïr was troubled by the words spoken by the men he killed, and he hoped that this final death would reveal some kind of truth to him, though of course nothing was true.

Desmond had guessed that he was walking into an ambush, which made it all the more frustrating when the memory of the funeral refused to trigger until he had entered the cemetery and was standing amongst the crowd, surrounded by Templar guards on all sides. Sure enough, the funeral speech ended with an accusing finger pointed at Altaïr, and the townspeople gasped and backed away, leaving Altaïr standing conspicuously in the centre of a circle closed on all sides by enemies brandishing their weapons. Desmond sighed internally, drew Altaïr's sword, and leapt forward into the bloodshed.

* * *

William Miles watched the feed from the Animus as his son raced effortlessly over rooftops, throwing knives slamming into the pursuing guards with deadly precision despite the fact that Desmond barely paused to take aim. He had grown skilled during his time at Abstergo, and Bill couldn't deny the fact that he was impressed by Desmond's talent. He'd always shown a natural inclination towards combat, even in the training he'd had as a boy, but this ... This was definitely promising.

He tasked Rebecca with calling him if anything new developed and climbed the stairs out of the basement, intending to telephone the other Assassin teams for updates. He used the payphone in the entrance hall - long since rigged so that not only did it not require quarters, there was also no chance of the signal being intercepted. He was only halfway through dialling the number when the front door opened and he glanced up at the figure standing there.

"Bill?" came a voice down the phone as it was answered. "Is that you, Bill?"

"I'll call you back." He hung up without waiting for an answer.

The man took a couple of steps down the hallway, his eyes fixed on Bill with unnerving cold intensity.

"My God," Bill said, walking towards him. "Rebecca told me you were here, that you'd gone to visit your parents. I can't tell you how..."

"Save it."

"... How proud I am of you, Clay. Without your help we would never have known what the Templars were planning with the Animus project." Bill laid a hand on Clay's shoulder, and the man barely glanced at it before fixing his gaze on his mentor's face once more. "You are more deserving of being ranked among our numbers than any Assassin born into the Order. I once asked you to prove yourself, and you have done so, many times over." He paused and let emotion show in his face. "I understand that I also have you to thank for returning my son."

"You were told wrong. It was Desmond who got us out of Abstergo. He's better than you think, Miles."

Bill nodded. He began walking down the hall and beckoned for Clay to follow him, They stepped into the white chamber of the conference room and Bill poured water into a plastic cup from the cooler, taking a sip before leaning against the table and looking at the young man whom he'd once recruited.

"You're angry with me," he said at last. Clay didn't respond. "I can understand why. It's only natural, after what you went through at Abstergo, to try to blame someone for your suffering, but you knew the risks before you went in. I know that it didn't all go to plan, that in the end we weren't able to get you out, and for that I am sorry. But you're here now, back with your brothers and sisters at what will be remembered as the most crucial time in our history, and you'll be recognised as the one who turned the tables for us all."

Clay didn't reply to this either, and Bill was unnerved by his silence. He could see that Kaczmarek was angry, and had expected him to yell, to launch into accusations and threats, to enumerate the tortures he had endured because of the Assassins' abandonment of him. Instead he just stood and stared in that creepy way, and when he finally spoke his voice was soft.

"I just saw my father."

Bill lifted his head and gave what he hoped was a genuine smile. "I'm glad. Was it a happy reunion?"

"Not particularly. He wasn't as tough as I remembered him. Maybe he was always this way, but when I was a kid I thought of him as some kind of hero, you know?"

"I suppose all sons think of their fathers that way," Bill said with a chuckle.

"Yours didn't."

Bill stopped laughing. Clay continued.

"Even when I was a kid, my father and I didn't get on all that well. He kept insisting that I had to become an engineer like him, and at the time I thought he just didn't care about what I wanted. I ... I think I have it figured out a little better now. He did care. He wanted me to get a steady job, to make money, to have a promising future. He made a mistake, trying to force it, but at least he cared. Mind if I get some water? It was a long journey."

Without waiting for a reply, Clay poured some water into a cup, choosing the blue button for chilled water rather than the red for room temperature. He drank slowly, and when he spoke again he was staring into the half-empty cup.

"He used to make me fix up the house so that I could learn about construction and plumbing and wiring, all that stuff. One time when I was thirteen, I was retiling the roof and I slipped on some wet leaves in the gutter and fell off." For some reason he smiled at the memory. "We lived in a bungalow, so it wasn't like I had far to fall, and it had just rained so the lawn was kinda soft anyway. I hurt my shoulder and my mom freaked out and called my dad at work to yell at him for sending me up there in the first place.

"He came home. I think he must have run a couple of red lights on the way because he'd never made the journey that fast before. My mom had me all laid up on the sofa and he came in, and I thought he was going to have a go at me for being clumsy. He did, later, but first he just sort of laid his hand on my head and sat next to me for a while, like he was making sure I was still intact."

Clay had said all this in a neutral, conversational tone, but he looked up again and Bill saw rage in his eyes: all the spite and bile and distaste that he he had built up over two years of captivity. William Miles had never been a man to frighten easily, but he was disquieted by how much Clay Kaczmarek had changed from the earnest young novice he'd once coached.

"Now I ask myself," Clay continued. "What kind of father could get a call to say that his son had fallen off a roof, that he'd broken a dozen different bones and fractured his skull and punctured his lung, and _not _come running? What kind of man hears his son has been kidnapped and is being tortured into madness, and doesn't try to rescue him?"

Bill stood up, suddenly furious. "A man who can't just think about his own needs! You think I didn't _want _to come here and be with Desmond while he recovered? You think I didn't _want _to send in a team of Assassins, to risk ten or twenty or a hundred lives just because there was chance they might be able to rescue my son? I have a responsibility to the Order, to value the needs of the many over my own selfish desires. I'm disappointed that you don't understand this, Clay."

"Your disappointment doesn't affect me any more, William."

"No, I can see that. But I'm disappointed all the same." He paused, knowing that he should stop the next words before he said them, but unable to resist coming out triumphant in this dialogue. "Desmond is a better man than you, Clay. He's able to see the bigger picture, and willing to make personal sacrifices for the greater good."

Oh, it was a joy to see Clay absorb that. It was vindictive, Bill knew, but the man had challenged him on his own damn grounds, had thrown those years of training and trust back in his face as though they'd never even mattered. Now slow realisation was creeping into his face and horror came with it.

"Where is he? What have you done to him?"

"Now calm down, Desmond is fine..."

"What have you done to him, you fucking _animal_?"

"I've done nothing to him. Desmond makes his own decisions, he always has!" Bill called out the last words, for Clay Kaczmarek was leaving, slamming open the door and charging into the corridor, calling out Desmond's name and yelling at a startled novice outside to give him answers.

Bill sighed and folded his arms. That could have gone better.


	18. Chapter 18

**Introductory note**: _Apologies for the wait, I have been in London for a week. It was terrible. I'm officially boycotting London until the Olympics are over and the Queen stops finding things to celebrate._

* * *

Altaïr was choking on the smell of blood, so thick in the air that he imagined the heat of battle evaporating the sickly, viscous, crimson fluid off the grass and into the air, so that he breathed blood instead of oxygen. His arms ached from the endless combat and he was flecked with a dozen small wounds, yet he needed to fight on, he needed to reach King Richard, and Robert De Sable, he needed...

An enemy! A Templar knight, flinging himself at Altaïr with a hoarse battle cry echoing in his helmet and murder in the eyes that peered out evilly through the slit. Altaïr raised his sword too late, finding himself wrapped in a choking grip by his attacker, unable to move...

"Desmond!" the knight cried out, shaking Altaïr violently as though trying to rattle the life from him.

Oh, the battle rose up against his ears and drowned out all noise, all sensation, overwhelming him, too much...

"It's not real, Desmond, look at me!_ Look at me_!"

Altaïr found his chin jerked upwards by the Templar's gloved hand, forcing him to meet the gaze beneath the steel of the helmet, cold blue eyes burning into him, seeping into the environment and bleeding away the black smoke and the red-spattered corpses to leave behind clean white walls, a bed, a wardrobe, and Clay.

"Clay?" God, what was happening?

"Oh thank fuck." Clay unfastened his grip cautiously, as though he suspected the apparent normality might just be an act. His face was a mask of wretched concern and anger. "Sit down, Desmond, your leg..."

"My leg," Desmond echoed, complying with Clay's instructions and setting himself gently down on the bed, resting his elbows on his knees so that he could better hold his head in his hands and regain his sense of reality. The broken leg was nearly fully healed now, enough that he was able to walk on it without crutches, but extra care had to be taken so as not to slow the healing process.

Clay slumped into the chair and adopted a similar position, allowing Desmond to see the sheen of perspiration that had accumulated on the back of his neck during their brief struggle. They sat in silence for about a minute, each attempting to bring themselves to a state of calm and failing to various degrees.

Clay was the first to look up, his expression hard and bitter once more. "This ends now."

"Soon," Desmond corrected gently. "It'll all be over soon. I've nearly reached that memory strand that we need from Altaïr, and once we get there..."

"Once you get there your father will continue to use you. _Over _and _over _again until there's nothing left of you."

"But when I'm done with Altaïr..."

"There will always be more ancestors, Desmond!" Clay's right hand moved as though he was about to touch Desmond on the hand or leg to emphasise his point, but he hesitated and then ran the hand through his own hair instead. "You've heard what your father's been saying about your DNA, about how you're the crux of thousands of years of Assassin breeding, the key to all the major players in our history: Altaïr, Ezio Auditore, that Native American guy. William will keep making you use the Animus, and the more people you become in that machine, the more pieces of yourself will start to chip away..."

"I'm doing fine!" Desmond insisted, scowling at the snort of disbelief that came in response. "I'm not an idiot, Clay. We're being careful now, using the Animus for shorter periods of time, and if things get too bad then I'll just stop."

Clay laughed humourlessly at that, and Desmond felt a sudden urge to hit him and hurt him, an urge that he fought down with no small amount of alarm. Was that a leftover from the Bleeding Effect? He hoped that was all it was.

"You think William Miles would ever let you 'just stop'? God, to think I used to believe you were smart." Clay's lips curled into a sneer. "Sometimes I wonder why I bother with you at all."

The urge to hit Clay was gone, and the space where it had been was numb, as though anaesthetised. Desmond wanted to tell Clay to fuck off, to retort that he didn't need him anyway, that he wished Clay _wouldn't_ bother with him. He wanted to stand up and throw open his door and tell Clay to get out of his room. Instead he just stared, watching the lines of defeat that Clay's body curved into as he tensed his shoulders, lowered his head and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Desmond thought about sleeping with his hand on Clay's heartbeat, of laughing with him as they ran over rooftops, and wondered how things had become this messed up in such a short space of time.

Clay lifted his head once more, leaving his hands to free to clench into fists. The sneering expression was gone now. "I am so, so fucking scared for you, Desmond," he admitted brokenly.

"I'm fine," Desmond said again: a platitude, this time, instead of an argument.

"No, you're not. I thought I was fine, back at Abstergo. You have no idea what it does to you, Desmond. Sometimes I would go for days at a time not knowing who I was, and when I remembered again it was like ... like finding out I'd been in a coma, and that I could just as easily not have woken up from it, that it could happen at any time and I might never wake up, just die and stay dead and not even realise it had happened." He suddenly covered his mouth with his hand, as though the words had spilled out unintentionally and he was trying to stop them. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before removing his hand and continuing. "Sometimes I want to go back in time, to when I first arrived at Abstergo, and just ... just fucking _shake_ myself, scream at myself to get out of there before all that started."

"But you did get out."

Clay laughed and shook his head. "Not all of me. You wouldn't know this, Desmond, because you only met me after I'd already been in there for too long, but I wasn't always like this. I used to be a nice guy." He looked down at his torso and legs as though expecting to see chunks of flesh missing. "I left so much of myself behind in that place. I think back about the man I used to be and I barely even recognise him. Sometimes I wonder if he really did die in the Animus."

Desmond stared. He should comfort. He should argue. He should placate. But hearing _that_, he found himself frozen with pity and fear, and he had no words to offer Clay.

"You don't know yet how it changes you, Desmond. You don't see yourself. You're so..." Clay fists opened and closed as he stared into Desmond's face as if he expected to find the right words written there in some kind of code. "You're so ... fucking ... _precious_. I know, I know how that sounds but it's true. You're still pretty much unchanged. You still have all of your kindness, all of your loyalty and nobility, your hope, your anger and fear. The Animus will take it from you and I can't watch that, Desmond. I won't. It would be harder than watching you fall off that roof."

Throughout the speech Desmond had watch Clay move through affection to frustration and sadness, finally ending up at anger, and as he finished speaking he stood up and turned as if about to leave. Suddenly, everything was very simple.

Desmond also stood up, carefully, keeping the tenderness of the bone in his leg always at the forefront of his mind. Clay had one hand on the doorhandle but paused as he heard Desmond approaching. Desmond raised his hand, noticing how the fingers shook slightly, and placed it on the warm curve of Clay's shoulder.

"OK."

As Clay turned, Desmond's hand fell back to his side, but he stared back confidently into the searching gaze of his friend.

"OK?"

"OK, I'll stop. I won't use the Animus any more."

It was almost worth it just to see the look on Clay's face. "Just like that?"

"You make a pretty convincing argument." Desmond grinned, the decision like a weight being lifted from his shoulders. "I'm too ... what was the word? 'Precious'?"

Clay groaned. "I'm never going to hear the end of that, am I?"

"I'm a beautiful, unique snowflake."

"You're a gorgeous, one of a kind pain in the ass. How are you going to break the news to your dad?"

"Put it on a postcard, maybe? I don't know."

There was a short silence, during which tension and doubt began to creep back into Clay's face. "He's not going to just let this happen, you know."

Desmond hesitated. "He said it was my decision."

"I'll bet he did."

* * *

William Miles was already in the Animus room, reviewing footage that was recorded during yesterday's session, and Desmond entered with Clay a few steps behind. Clay had insisted on being there, ostensibly for moral support but probably just to ensure that Desmond wouldn't back down, and had agreed with reluctance to stay out of the discussion.

Rebecca, tinkering with the Animus, looked up at the two of them and grinned at Desmond. "Hey there, Miles Junior. Ready to go to war?"

Desmond had been struggling with the memory of Altaïr's search for Robert De Sable. The battlefield was thick with enemies and since the event was so filled with combat Desmond was given few hints as to how his ancestor had managed to fight his way through it, instead merely slashing his way through crowds of attacking soldiers until he inevitably fell beneath their blades. The thought of it gave him strength: at least there would be no fighting today.

Well, not that kind of fighting. He hoped.

It was now late evening, for Desmond had insisted on his daily time in the Animus being split into two sessions, one at each end of the day. The Animus was in the basement of the building, and he had no desire to spend his only waking hours in darkness, so two sessions it was. It was somehow easier to handle, knowing he'd at least be able to soak up some cold fall rays each day.

Desmond smiled tightly at Rebecca and stood close to her, hoping that William wouldn't hear. "I need to talk to my Dad? Could you help me out and go get yourself some coffee for about ... fifteen minutes?"

Her face fell a little with concern, but she nodded. "OK. Coffee is no hardship. I'll be in the mess, come get me when you want to get going."

Desmond considered telling her that she would not be needed, but out of the corner of his eye he could see that William was looking over at them. He patted her shoulder gratefully and waited for her to leave before turning to his father, who was waiting with a tangible air of being prepared for battle.

"I hope I'm not in any trouble, Desmond," he joked.

"No."

There was that look, the slight twitch in his father's eye that meant he was already guessing what was coming, and planning his counter-arguments ten moves ahead. "Alright. Say what you want to say."

"I'm not using the Animus today, Dad." His voice hadn't shaken once, and he offered up a silent prayer of thanks for that.

Bill raised an eyebrow.

"I can't keep doing this. I'm sorry to let you down, but I can't take it any more." He regretted agreeing to let Clay come with him, wished that he wasn't in the room, that he wouldn't have to listen to this after Desmond had been so careful not to let anyone find out. "The Bleeding Effect is getting worse. The other day I thought for at least an hour that I was inside the Animus, but then I opened my eyes and ... I was on the roof." He heard a sharp intake of breath behind him, but Bill's face was inscrutable."I can't sleep. I'm getting these headaches and they're ... they're really fucking awful, Dad, they're crippling, painkillers can't even touch them. I'm..." No! He couldn't break down now. William Miles would jump all over any weakness, would use it to crowbar open Desmond's defenses and break him down. He shouldn't say it, but he had to. "I'm scared, Dad. I know what happened to the other test subjects at Abstergo and I don't want to end up like them." _Too much explanation, it doesn't matter, just say it._ "It's over. I'm not using the Animus again. Sorry."

William nodded, once. "OK."

Desmond had thought he'd prepared himself for just about anything, but with that one word he felt a metaphorical rug pulled out from under his feet. "Are you serious?"

"Of course, Desmond. I told you, you're calling the shots on this one. If the Animus is affecting you this badly then it makes sense for you to take a break." Bill smiled affectionately. "You never have to worry about talking to me about things like this, Desmond. That's what I'm here for."

Desmond barely heard him. Upon hearing the words "take a break", he had felt a disquieting combination of relief and dismay, and now he was struggling hard against the urge to leave the conversation here, to be picked up again at another unspecified date that he didn't have to think about just yet. But he felt the solid presence of Clay at his back, and resolved to finish this now.

"I'm glad you feel that way, Dad, because I'm not just taking a break. I'm quitting. I'm out. I'm never going back into that thing again."

Bill looked at him, and then sighed. "Desmond, I understand that you're upset..."

"Don't! Don't do that, don't treat me like a child."

"Alright. I won't treat you like a child." Bill took a step closer and squared his shoulders. "I explained to you the importance of finding out about the Pieces of Eden, and you agreed to help."

"I've changed my mind. You said it was my decision."

"Is it?" Bill glance slid sideways, fixing at a point over his son's shoulder, and Desmond didn't need to turn around to guess who his father was looking at. "Is this really your decision?"

Desmond stepped pointedly into his father's line of vision. "Yes. Leave Clay out of this."

"I'd like to, Desmond, but he seems unwilling to _stay_ out of it."

Surisingly, Clay didn't speak up. Desmond hadn't seen the two of them engage in conversation since Clay had returned from visiting his parents, but there'd been evidence of a fight in the hushed whispers around the Den and the manner in which Clay and William would pointedly refuse to look at each other when they had the misfortune to be in the same room. Desmond had argued with Clay, or more precisely had been argued at, shortly after his friend tore him out of the Animus and shook him violently to bring him back to reality. Still disoriented, Desmond had allowed himself to be dragged to Clay's room and there endured a lecture on how he was an idiot for allowing his father to manipulate him.

It had been a long talk. Perhaps Clay had nothing left to say now.

Desmond had nothing left to say either. He turned and began walking away.

"We'll discuss this when you're feeling a bit calmer," his father called after him.

"I am calm," Desmond said, quietly, speaking to himself.

He felt Clay at his side before he saw him, felt the hand on his shoulder before he turned to look at the pensive, narrowed eyes. He felt like a marionette, held upright by strings attached to the ends of Clay's fingers. God, what was the implication of that? Was his father right? Had he really just swapped one form of control for another? Why was it that he did not mind the idea of Clay controlling him, of belonging to Clay, of following him everywhere?

"We need to get out of here."

Did Clay feel like this as well? Did Desmond exert his own hold?

"Your father will try to persuade you. When he can't persuade you, he'll force you."

"Tonight."

Clay stopped walking for a moment, then jogged to catch up as Desmond walked out of the building and into the small garden outside.

"Tonight?" Clay echoed.

"Pack a bag and meet me in my room. We'll go through the window so no one sees us leave."

Clay grinned at him. "Breaking out all over again, huh? Should I knock out a guard and steal his uniform?"

"No. Anyway, our guards don't wear uniforms."

"I could go to the mall and knock out a security guard."

"What is your obsession with guards and uniforms?"

"If we're going on the lamb I want to look the part. You looked damn fine in a uniform."

"I look damn fine in whatever I wear, it's part of my natural charm."

They stopped and leaned on the garden wall, the night air cool on their bare arms. Clay was grinning, and Desmond tried to remember the last time he had seen his friend looking this relaxed. He thought about leaving and felt a pang of sadness at the thought that he would not be able to use the Animus again.

This was the final secret, the part that he had concealed from both Clay and his father: he had grown to love the machine, to love the thrill of fighting inside it and escaping from the pressures and complications of everyday life. He had even grown to like Altaïr , who had lost his infurating arrogance and become, if not humbled, then at least less egotistical and more selfless. Altaïr had become the kind of man that Desmond aspired to be, and it troubled him that this man was so unlike him, so dedicated to the brotherhood. By breaking the rules and disregarding his family and the Order that had raised him, was Desmond so different from the man Altaïr had been, the man he had hated?

There they were: the doubts. Already? So soon? Time was running out and they had to leave, they had to leave, they had to...

"We have to leave. Now." If Desmond could hear the panic in his own voice, then surely Clay could as well. He half-jogged back to the house, the beginnings of a rain storm starting to spatter onto his shoulders, and called over his shoulder without thinking. "Pack light. Just clothes and some money, we can buy more when we get..." He cut himself off too late.

William Miles was sitting at the top of the stairs, elbows on his knees and hands clasped, shoulders a little hunched - waiting, like a bear trap. He had been staring at the weathered wood beneath his feet, but as Desmond stood frozen beneath him he slowly looked up.

"Going somewhere, Desmond?"

This was the confrontation that might have happened ten years ago, and Desmond still wasn't prepared for it. He swallowed hard and stood his ground. "What if I am?"

"We agreed you would take a break from the Animus, Desmond, not from the Brotherhood." Bill didn't sound accusing or angry. He was just tired: a middle-aged man trying to deal with a son that he didn't understand. The tone of voice failed to soothe the boiling of Desmond's blood.

"_We _didn't agree anything. _I_ decided. Now I'm deciding this."

Bill just looked at him with those eyes, those goddamn shrewd, penetrating eyes. _Ten moves ahead_, Desmond reminded himself. _Don't trust him._

"Desmond, please don't do this. I can't go through this again, not after last time. If you knew what it did to me, to your mother..."

"Leave Mom out of this! You're good at that, aren't you?" Desmond seethed, pointing a finger at his father as if that could silence him. It had been a tender subject, ever since he had discovered that Elizabeth Miles still didn't know about her son's return; the Assassins had phoned William while he was working away in Europe, and he'd decided, apparently, 'to get things sorted out first'. Desmond suspected that his mother would disagree with the way her son was being used, but he had no idea where she was or how to contact her.

Bill considered this, then stood up slowly, his knees creaking a little. "Would you like me to call her, Desmond. Maybe if we talked this out, as a family..." He walked down a couple of steps and Desmond backed away until he found a hand on his shoulder, a strong chest against his back.

"Get ready," Clay breathed, just barely loud enough for Desmond to hear. They both took a couple of steps backwards as Bill descended another couple of steps.

"Desmond," he said, his voice deepening with a warning tone.

"We're by the front door now. I'm going to open it. Can you run?

"I can try," Desmond murmured, trying not to move his lips too much.

Bill Miles was nearly at the bottom of the stairs. A couple of younger Assassins had emerged from the mess and were watching the frieze with a mixture of puzzlement and anticipation. Desmond's heart pounded in his chest, and he prayed for his leg to hold him up, to not let him fall.

"Come on, son, I don't think I'm being unreasonable here. I just want to talk..."

Clay slammed his shoulders backwards into the door and it opened with the burst of violence. He threw Desmond out first and then followed him, the two of them running along the short pathway and onto the street outside, immediately drenched and baptised by the rain that was now crashing down like the end of the world. Desmond couldn't see Clay any more; each time we blinked more water would pour into his eyes. Then there was a hand in his and he just had time to think, _but hand-holding didn't work the last time_, before he was being dragged into a stumbling half-run away from the Assassin Den.

His father and the Assassins were giving chase, and that was what cemented Desmond's resolve: if his father had simply let him leave there might still have been the illusion of freedom, but with the pursuit there was suddenly no difference between this and the escape from Abstergo. Desmond's leg was already starting to protest against the strain, and he pictures the fragile bonds between the two sections snapping once more, leaving him helpless and crippled on the street.

They had turned a couple of corners and their headstart had meant that Bill and the others were a good distance behind them, but the glow of the city was picking them out in the rain like a searchlight. Desmond's was flooded with the thrill of the chase, burning so much from exertion that he fancied he saw the rain rising off him as steam, and in an act of desperate he dodged sideways into an alleyway, dragging Clay with him where their hands connected.

He'd only intended to move them away from the streetlights, but somewhere along the way the movement turned into something else and Desmond found himself pressing his torso against Clay's, water trickling down his chest as the pressure wrung it out of his clothes. His skin was cold but there was a raging heat inside his stomach and it forced him to whip his head forward and crush his mouth desperately against Clay's, causing the other man's head to knock backwards abruptly with a painful-sounding _clunk_ against the hard brick wall.

Desmond relinquished his mouth and moved back a little, panicking, horrified. "Oh God, I'm sorry, are you...?"

That was as far as he got. Clay groaned and fisted his hands in the back of Desmond's shirt, pressing them harder together and bringing his mouth back down onto Desmond's. The heavy rain crashing around them was cold, but Clay's lips were hot and welcoming, slick on the inside when Desmond's tongue invaded them. The cries of the Assassins echoed in the distance and the two of them were kissing open-mouthed in the rain like drowning men.

Clay broke away for breath and Desmond brought a hand up to run it through his hair, rivulets of water running over his fingers as he compressed the dark blond strands.

"Are you ... fucking ... kidding me?" Clay gasped, disbelievingly. He snatched another delving, hungry kiss before spinning Desmond around so that their positions were reversed and the rough graze of brickwork on Desmond's back felt like another kind of kiss. "_Now?_ All that time in the Animus, all that time on the run ... four fucking weeks cooped up in the Den with nothing to do, and you..." He paused with a growl and lowered his head to bite and suck at the rain-slicked neck below him, an action which sent staggering flickers of arousal sparking all over Desmond's body and left him whimpering helplessly, his hips automatically pushing themselves into Clay.

"I..." he began, but he couldn't talk with Clay's mouth on him like this. The other man broke away from his neck, carded his fingers through Desmond's short hair and glared at him fiercely.

"Now?" he repeated. "We've shared a bed, for Christ's sake! You spent an entire night with your hand up my shirt and _now _you decide to kiss me for the first time? Not great timing, Desmond!"

It was hard to take his outrage seriously when Clay was pinning him to the wall with his body and his cold-hardened nipples were tangible even through the twin layers of their shirts, but all Desmond could think about was that Clay was objecting only to the timing of the kiss, not the fact of it. Desmond smiled and then laughed, pressing their foreheads together. "Crazy and stupid, remember?"

The Assassins were close enough now that Bill Miles' voice could be picked out even over the cacophany of rain crashing onto the asphalt. Regretfully, the two runaways broke apart and began sprinting down the alleyway and towards their freedom.


	19. Chapter 19

**Introductory note:** _Desmond and Clay - The Porn Years!_

_Just kidding. Sort of. Writing sex is easy, but writing sex without both characters just turning into Insert Name Heres in a bad porno is bloody difficult, which is why this chapter has probably undergone more editing than all the others put together. Have I given away its content yet?_

* * *

Despite the short break they'd taken, it didn't take long for the two men to lose their pursuers, and Desmond later suspected that his father had given up the chase fairly easily, knowing that any attempt to bring his son back would inevitably result in a fight where one or both of them might be hurt. Perhaps he believed that Desmond would return of his own volition.

The triumph lasted up until they both realised that it was 1am, and they were out on the streets in the pouring rain with no money and very few prospects for pickpocketing. In the end they came across a row of storage garages and Clay scratched around in the mud until he found a length of wire suitable for lock-picking. Desmond leaned against the cool, corrugated metal of one of the doors and watched his friend crouched on the ground, jimmying the lock open, his body arched and the material of his shirt plastered against his skin so that the bands of muscle in his back and shoulders were visible as they shifted and tensed. Desmond felt a sudden urgency in the need to stand over him, rest his palms on that glorious back, and he realised that he _could_, he was allowed to.

Right now probably wasn't the best time to exercise that freedom, though.

With a grunt of victory, Clay conquered the padlock. He stood and opened the garage door with a rattle that seemed deafeningly loud, then turned to look at Desmond with a smirk.

"You want me to carry you over the threshold?"

Desmond rolled his eyes and ducked into the blessedly dry shelter, realising as he did so that his teeth were chattering violently. He flicked a light-switch on the wall and a dim orange glow snapped into existence from a dusty overhead bulb. The storage facility was in use, but thankfully not too cluttered, and he guessed that its owner was some kind of student spending a gap year abroad. There were a lot of posters rolled up carefully into tubes in one big box, a bike leaning against the wall, boxes of clothes, DVDs, books and records and - blessedly - a stack of bedding. Desmond gave a sigh of relief and reached for it, only to have two hands catch him on the stomach and chest and pull him backwards roughly so that his back was held tightly against Clay's front. He grinned in pleasure despite being thwarted and pressed backwards into the embrace.

"Slow down, idiot," Clay murmured, his lips trailing over the nape of Desmond's neck. "Has it escaped your notice that we're both soaking wet?"

"And cold," Desmond added, though he was feeling warmer now than he had been just a second ago. "Don't forget cold."

"Cold, right. So if you go charging right in and grab that duvet now, it's going to end up cold and wet. You don't want that, do you?" he scolded. While he waited for a reply, Clay brought the hand that was pressed over Desmond's pectoral upwards and used it to pull the collar of Desmond's T-shirt aside so that his neck was better exposed. Desmond felt the graze of lips and teeth there and shuddered.

"You make a pretty convincing argument."

"Mmm." The vibration of the hum radiated across Desmond's skin. "Keep your back turned, Desmond. I'm gonna get out of these wet clothes, and I'd like to preserve my modesty."

Desmond laughed but did as he was told. He felt Clay move away and heard the slick wet sound of his T-shirt being pulled off, then the slap of it as it hit the ground. He decided that his modesty was pretty much void by this point and did the same, dragging the sopping mass of his shirt over his head and throwing it aside before reaching forward into one of the boxes of clothes. He found a dry shirt, held it up to his nose and sniffed it. It was a little stale from being in storage for so long, but definitely clean.

"Pass me one of those, would you?" Desmond heard the heavy sound of Clay's jeans hitting the ground, and suddenly the air seemed closer and his heart was beating faster. "And some boxers, if you can find them."

"You're soaked to your underwear?"

"Fuckin' rain."

Desmond dug around until he found the items and tossed them over his shoulder. He didn't hear them hit the ground, so presumably Clay had caught them. He toed off his socks and sneakers (both ruined), then unbuttoned and pulled down his jeans, realising as he did so that his underwear was in a similar state to Clay's.

"Shit."

There was a laugh behind him. "You want me to close my eyes, Princess?"

"How can I be sure you will, even if I ask?"

"You can't."

"Then I won't bother."

Desmond spoke lightly, but even so he felt a hot flush on his skin where Clay was watching as he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts. He didn't want to show hesitation, so he yanked them down to his thighs and let gravity take them the rest of the way, kicking them aside when they landed around his ankles.

It occurred to him as he reached into the box of clothes than he hadn't heard Clay put any new clothes on, which meant that at this point they were probably both naked. He could look around, right now, and see Clay, all of Clay. But he wouldn't. If Clay was insisting upon this "preserving my modesty" nonsense then two could play at that game.

Desmond found a pair of clean boxers but paused before pulling them on. "Alright back there?" he called.

He was expecting a sarcastic retort, but the only sound he heard was the shallowness of Clay's breathing. Finally he swallowed and spoke in a husky, shaken voice. "Christ, Desmond."

Grinning smugly, Desmond pulled the underwear on and quickly followed them up with a worn T-shirt. He stayed facing towards the wall until Clay announced, his voice still slightly deeper than usual, that he was dressed. When Desmond turned he found that Clay's eyes were turned downwards, but the gaze dragged up slowly until the two men made eye contact. Clay's breath was a little uneven and his eyes had a vulnerability to them that Desmond had never seen before.

"Um," he said, and Desmond found himself trying to remember if he'd ever heard Clay say 'um' before. "We should probably, uh..."

"Get some rest?"

A rushed exhale of breath. "Yeah."

They looked at each other.

Later, Desmond was sure that he had moved first, but Clay insisted that he had taken control. They both remembered it as being far more violent and impassioned than it actually was, for really the kiss was smooth and natural and the manner in which Desmond's hand inched up Clay's back and beneath his shirt was gentle with only a hint of urgency. He felt then that he would never be able to feel enough of Clay's skin against his; he needed _more_, as though the very cells in his body were crying out to be joined with Clay's. Their mouths moved together, both their heads tipped slightly to the left, and theirs was a slow slide of lips and tongues punctuated by the occasional clash of teeth.

Desmond was hard, and would have been embarrassed about the fact had he not felt an answering hardness nudging against his hip. He pushed further into Clay's space until the man gave way and moved in the direction of Desmond's force until his back was pressed against a small, bare stretch of wall. Desmond framed Clay's face with his hands, took hold of his lower lip gently in his teeth, and then pushed a knee between Clay's legs and began rubbing his thigh over so slightly against him.

Clay gave a high-pitched moan and freed himself from Desmond's mouth, dropping his head onto the nearest available shoulder. He began to move a little - just a little - shamelessly grinding himself to full arousal against the proffered thigh.

"Fuck," he slurred, running his hands up Desmond's back until they were cupped over his shoulderblades. "Desmond ... What do you ... What do you think the chances are ... Of us finding condoms in this place?"

Silence followed the question and was filled by the clattering of rain against the metal door. Without meaning to, Desmond pulled his leg back slightly and buried his face in Clay's neck so that his expression would be hidden.

Of course, Clay wasn't having any of it. The hands on Desmond's shoulderblades were brought up until they were cupping his face and Clay pulled his head back so that they were eye to eye. Desmond kept his gaze firmly cast down and to the side.

"Desmond?" Clay's voice had taken on its usual hard edge once more. "Desmond, what's wrong?"

Desmond tried to kiss Clay again, to distract him, but the man deflected the attempt. He drew backwards and surveyed Desmond with an analytical look that was enough to make anybody squirm, before his mouth opened in stunned awe.

"Desmond Miles, are you a _virgin_?"

"Fuck off."

"You _are_! That's fucking adorable."

"I'm not a fucking virgin!"

"Oh I bet you've done it with girls before, but that doesn't count." Clay ran a hand over Desmond's throat and down his side, staring with fresh marvel as he canted his hips forward a little. "You could have just _said_. It's not a bad thing." He pressed in for another kiss, and Desmond was relieved to find his mouth as hard and insistent as ever, instead of artificially soft and gentle. Desmond might not have explored his bisexuality much until now, but he was _not_ a fucking wilting flower.

"I know it's not a bad thing," he said, breaking the kiss. "To be honest, I was more worried that you were going to freak out about it."

"Well I'm not. Though I'm not going to let your first fuck be in a dirty garage either."

"I don't mind." He really, _really _didn't.

"No condoms, though."

Desmond thought this over. Clay wasn't being condescending but there was still the possibility that he was thinking of Desmond as some kind of blushing maiden, and Desmond could think of only one decent method of convincing him otherwise.

He dropped to his knees.

Clay stared down at him.

"You're not..."

"Take your shirt off."

"Desmond..."

"It was clean on just now, you don't want to muck it up. Take it off."

Clay complied wordlessly and Desmond grazed his stomach with teeth and lips, smiling at the full-body shiver it triggered.

"You were right, I've not done this before. I might suck at it."

"That's sort of the point."

"You got a smart mouth, Kaczmarek."

"Let's hope I'm not the only one."

Desmond pulled Clay's boxers down carefully and took a deep breath, just staring for a moment. He sat down on his heels and rested his cheek against Clay's thigh.

"Desmond..." Clay sounded like he was being strangled.

"Relax, I'm building up to it."

"Build_ faster_."

Desmond laughed against Clay's skin. Apparently the man had decided that patience was a virtue he could do without, and there was no denying that Desmond wanted this too, weird as that was. His body was tight with a mixture of curiosity and an odd feeling of hunger that he could only compare to the days when he used to smoke. He kissed Clay's thigh farewell before sitting up and taking the plunge, as it were.

Clay cried out softly at the first touch of Desmond's mouth and reached down to grab a small tangle of hair. He didn't force anything, though, just let it rest there as Desmond tasted precome and wondered what he had gotten himself into. He could feel and hear Clay responding to what he was doing, and the direct line between action and reaction was dizzyingly arousing, enough so that Desmond found that one of his own hands was working its way into his boxers out of a desperate, aching need for contact. This should have made the primary task more difficult, but Desmond found that the closer he came to his own release the more of Clay he needed to taste, and he soon built up a natural rhythm for both of them.

Oh _Christ_, he was close, he was so close and he was thrusting upwards into his fist desperately to get closer. He needed to wait, he knew, needed to let Clay get there first, but any unsexy images he tried to think of were blown away by the taste and texture and weight of Clay's cock in his mouth and Desmond felt his thighs starting to tremble as he rolled unstoppably towards the edge. Remembering the advice he'd given a few minutes ago and realising what was imminent, he paused for a moment, releasing them both.

"Desmond?" Clay looked and sounded like he was fighting some kind of violent internal struggle. "Do you ... do you want to stop? You don't have to..."

"No, I'm fine. Just..." Desmond stood shakily for a moment and kissed Clay, noting that he left the other man's mouth slightly wet when he pulled away. He grinned apologetically and pulled his shirt over his head, throwing it aside so that it landed on the handlebars of the bicycle. He noted the way that Clay's eyes landed on his torso and fixed there, and so with his heart pounding he stepped close again, pressing himself lightly against Clay. He took hold of the man's hands and guided them gently to the waistband of his boxers before tipping his head forward so that their lips touched lightly.

"Go on," he murmured against Clay's mouth. "I want you to do it."

As Clay pushed the boxers down, he took a moment to cup Desmond's left buttock gently in his hand, just a little, enough to make Desmond shiver. Then the last layer of clothing between them was gone and they stood naked against the wall, kissing with something akin to chasteness and running fingertips lightly over bare skin.

On his way back down, Desmond pressed his lips to Clay's collarbone, over his ribs and navel and hip, not teasing but tasting. Then he breathed deep and took Clay in again, reaching down to find himself just as close as before, if not more so. Barely a minute went by before Clay's fingers tightened in his hair and his hips finally broke free from the reins of willpower holding them back and tipped forward, forcing him deeper into Desmond's mouth.

That was it. It was over. Desmond came and it was fucking _atomising_. He unfettered his voice and gave a sharp cry around Clay, and a second later there was an answering shout above him and something (oh right, _that_) was spilling saltily onto his tongue, and Desmond was swallowing out of instinct, still wracked with the final convulsions of his own orgasm and it was too much, too much, oh God...

"Oh God..." Desmond stuttered raspily, releasing Clay from his mouth but staying where he was, too overwhelmed to think or move or even breathe. There was no way his legs would support him right now. "Oh God, Clay ... that was..." He was trying desperately to articulate the sensations flooding his system but somewhere between feelings and words the meaning became lost and all he could do was babble inanely.

Clay stepped around him, staggering a little, and Desmond remained on his knees, still shaking too hard for any kind of movement to seem like a wise idea. He didn't know how long he knelt there, but the next thing he knew there was an arm gently tugging at his waist and he fell backwards gratefully onto soft bedding, curling into a ball with Clay's chest pressed against his back and knees brought up so that their legs formed a quotation mark. Desmond shivered and immediately felt a thick blanket come up to cover his shoulders.

In the silence, he felt anxiety biting at his chest. "Was it OK?" he asked, hating the way it sounded - like he was fishing for compliments.

Clay kissed his hair lazily. "Would it make you feel better if I gave you a gold star?"

"I'd settle for silver."

"You'd get gold anyway." Clay stroked a hand down Desmond's stomach. "Seriously. It was perfect. Thank you."

"Any time. You mind if I put some clothes on before I freeze?"

"Not at all. Can you grab mine while you're up?"

"You lazy fucker."

"Could you make me a sandwich as well?"

They broke apart while Desmond fetched their clothes. When they were both dressed,, Clay took his time in getting back underneath the blanket. He slid in slowly, and Desmond - his eyes closed now - felt a hand on his ribcage as the first point of contact before it was joined by the heat of Clay's face against his neck and their legs tangling together. The garage wasn't exactly warm but the cocoon they were in was like a small summer.

Desmond was just dozing off when Clay said his name.

"What is it?"

"Why did you wait so long to kiss me?"

The question took him by surprise, and it took him a second to answer despite the fact that the reason sprang to mind immediately. "You're my friend, Clay. My best friend, in fact, and I don't care how incredibly high school that sounds."

"So...?"

"So just because you're my best friend, doesn't mean I ever figured you out. I never know what you're thinking, and I definitely didn't know how you'd respond to me kissing you. I just ... I didn't want to risk losing you."

"Hmm." Clay went quiet and Desmond assumed that was the end of the conversation. The rain was still pounding violently outside but it was warm and dry beneath the blankets, and he once again began letting the rhythmic rattle of water on metal soothe him to sleep.

Then...

"Desmond?"

"_What_?"

"I love you."

Desmond turned his head a little. "OK, you gave me a hypothetical gold star already, I'm convinced the blow job was good. You don't have to..."

"No, I mean it. I am totally and utterly fucking in love with you. I am so in love with you that if it were possible I would crawl underneath your skin just to get closer to you. I love you, Desmond Miles, every fucking atom of you, right down to your beautiful fucking soul. Got it?"

"Yeah," Desmond breathed, after a second's pause. "Yeah, I got it. You're every expressive."

"I've been in love with you for probably about as long as you've wanted to kiss me, and I didn't tell you because I thought I might lose you. Think of all that wasted time, Desmond. This is one more thing I don't have to regret."

Secretly, Desmond knew that he was in love with Clay as well, though he couldn't pinpoint the moment when he had fallen in love. Perhaps it had happened just a few seconds ago, upon hearing Clay have the courage to speak those words. He would wait to say it, of course, because saying it right back would just sound false.

"You freaking out over there?" Clay sounded casual, but Desmond sensed rather than heard the anxiety in the question.

"Just wondering how I can use this to my advantage. Can I have your car?"

"Sure."

"Do you even _own _a car?"

"Nope."

"If you really loved me you'd buy me a car."

"How about I give you a _loving_ kick in the balls?"

"I'd appreciate it if you'd_ lovingly_ shut up. I'd like to get some sleep this century."

"'Night, Desmond. Love you."

"Yeah, yeah, you said that already."

It was more of a punch in the balls than a kick, but luckily for Desmond, Clay's aim was slightly compromised that night.

* * *

**Chapter endnote:** _"I love you" speeches are harder to write than all the sex scenes in the world. But to all my readers and reviewers: I love you. Right down to your beautiful fucking souls. Got it?_


	20. Chapter 20

Sunrise didn't happen in the storage garage, due to the lack of windows, but Desmond woke with it anyway. His waking was still and silent - a simple opening of eyes and loss of dreams - and so when he looked over he found Clay sleeping on undisturbed. To his amusement, Desmond realised that their final position had been with Clay on his back and Desmond on his side with one hand lying upon the other man's chest, underneath his shirt.

Some people look childlike in sleep. Somewhat predictably, Clay was not one of those people. His brow was furrowed ever so slightly, making what was probably just a REM cycle look like mild crossness, and just audible in the quiet of dawn was the gentle scraping sound of his teeth grinding together in an unconscious habit. Desmond found himself torn between the enjoyment of watching Clay sleep, and a wish to wake him up and do other things to him. Eventually he elected the former option, figuring that Clay would wake up of his own accord.

Given the time and liberty, Desmond was able to observe the smaller details of Clay's physicality that had escaped notice until now. His hair was a shade darker at the roots than it was at the tips, not through chemical bleaching but simply because the strands became lighter over the time that they were exposed to the sun. He had a tiny silver scar that just barely sliced through the tip of his left eyebrow. His skin was not actually all that pale, but had merely appeared that way beneath the fluorescent Abstergo lights and the harsh blue of the Animus, and Desmond had become so accustomed to the idea of his having pale skin that he'd never quite acknowleged the colour in it.

Desmond also observed that he wanted to be fucked by Clay, he wanted that very badly, to the point that he reconsidered the option of waking him up specifically for that purpose. He didn't know whether that was an observation of Clay or of himself. He wanted to strip Clay naked and climb into his lap and stroke him and watch him come, then kiss him afterwards. He looked at Clay's mouth and wondered what it would feel like on his dick. He wondered whether the skin over Clay's spine would taste the same as the stretch of skin that connected his hip and groin. He wanted to bite Clay gently on the back of his leg, just to see what the reaction would be. Was this normal? Was this weird? Did it matter? _God, Clay, I think I really need you to fuck me._

Desmond became aware of his own erection and tried to carefully shift away so that it would not be pressed so obviously against Clay's hip, and that was when the pain decided to cheerfully make its presence known.

"Ahhh, holy shitting hell, _fuck_!"

Clay sat bolt upright looking comically startled, his hair sticking up where it had dried on the pillow. "What is it?" he demanded harshly. "Desmond, what?"

"My leg, my _goddamn _leg." Oh God, what if he'd rebroken the bone doing all that running and ... those other activities? If it was broken it would take months to heal again, and they'd need to go to a hospital; they'd need to risk capture once more.

"Hold still, don't try to move it. Let me take a look."

Desmond laid back down, exhausted by the pain, as Clay removed the blanket carefully. His strong fingers caressed the skin around Desmond's shinbone, then began to apply a small amount of pressure.

"Does that hurt?"

Desmond gritted his teeth. "Tell you what. If it stops hurting, I'll send you a memo."

"Don't be a smartass, I meant does it hurt more when I put pressure on it?" Clay squeezed the leg ever so slightly once more and Desmond tried to concentrate.

"No. I don't think so. It feels like my leg's on fire..."

"I don't think it's the bone. I think your muscle's in spasm."

"Oh, is that all?" Desmond snapped, trying to focus on not passing out.

"Makes sense," Clay said, ignoring the sarcasm. "You've been off that leg for a good couple of months, and then you spend fifteen minutes sprinting on it with no warm up. Your calf muscle must have freaked the fuck out. It looks a little swollen, but there's no bruising." He carefully drew the blanket up over the afflicted leg again and moved back up, reaching out to stroke the back of his hand over Desmond's sweat-soaked cheek. "Try breathing deep and slow."

Stepping down hard on the impulse to make an insulting retort, Desmond tried to follow the advice. It did nothing to stop the pain, but it at least calmed him down a little. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on Clay's hand as it brushed his lips and jaw soothingly.

"I hate seeing you in pain," Clay stated quietly. "It makes me want to find whoever's responsible and..." He didn't finish the sentence.

"Guess that's me, this time," Desmond muttered tensely, wondering if amputation was too drastic a measure to take.

"I shouldn't have made you run."

"You can't make me do anything I don't want to do, Kaczmarek."

Clay laughed tightly and pressed his mouth against Desmond's hair, inhaling deeply. It can't have smelled all that good but it felt pleasant. Words that he couldn't quite make out were mumbled against his skull.

"What was that?"

"I need to leave for a bit."

Fighting down the instinct of _no_, _no_, _no_, Desmond asked, "Why?"

"We need money. Food. You need painkillers." That last part was definitely true. "I might even be able to find some crutches for you to use, since you really shouldn't be on that leg at all. I promise I'll only be a few hours."

Desmond was already panicking at the idea of being alone, but his leg was screaming its injury at him and the idea of painkillers was attractive to an almost sexual degree. Clay demonstrated how to massage and stretch the muscle to ease the cramping, and for a moment Desmond became distracted from the pain by the feeling of Clay's fingers rubbing and manipulating the area with intriguing skill. When the hands finally left him, his leg felt unnaturally cold.

"Keep stretching the muscle, when you can," Clay said. Slowly, as if afraid he might be rejected, he leaned in and pressed a slow kiss against Desmond's hairline, his lips warm and a little chapped from dehydration. Then he listened at the door for a moment before rattling it half-open, ducking outside, and slamming the metal sheet back into place. Desmond closed his eyes and decided to try and sleep as much as possible through Clay's absence.

* * *

He made it through the first half hour before his leg woke him up again. He tried to read one of the books in the garage, and that worked for a while as he alternated between reading a chapter and stopping to massage some of the pain away. It was a relief, therefore, when he heard footsteps approaching from outside and saw the shadow of fingers appear underneath the door. It was pulled upwards and open with a flourish.

"About time," he began, then froze. Even squinting at the figure silhouetted against the bright sunshine, he could tell that it definitely wasn't Clay.

"Got him!" the young Assassin called out excitedly. He was soon joined by another as Desmond tried and failed to struggle to his feet.

He recognised them from the Den; they were brothers, born into the Order but raised outside of it, so they were only now a few years into their training and eager to please both their father and Desmond's.

"I told you it was weird that this one didn't have a padlock," the first Assassin said smugly to his brother, who ignored him.

"We're here to take you back, Mr Miles," he said gently.

Desmond braced his back against the wall and pushed himself up it, trying to conceal how crippled his leg was. "It's good to have ambition, I guess," he replied.

The second brother had clearly read the pain on his face, and took a step closer. "We can get that leg looked at properly."

"Nothing wrong with my leg. I think it's fine as it is."

The first brother piped up again. "We can do this the easy way, Mr Miles, or we can do it the-"

He never finished the sentence. A broken-off, rusted section of pipe appeared suddenly and bloodily to sprout from the middle of his chest. He stared down at it in amazement and tried to speak, but liquid escaped from his mouth instead of air. The pipe was forcefully dragged out through his back and as soon as it was gone he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

They obviously hadn't reached the part in their training where they were lectured not to weep for fallen comrades in battle. Or perhaps they had - some things you just couldn't teach away. The second Assassin stared in horror and paralysed grief at his fallen brother, and Clay used the moment of hesitation to drag him to the ground, straddle his body and pound the length of pipe into his skull until there wasn't much of it left.

Desmond thought about throwing up, but decided against it. The place was messy enough as it was.

Clay stood up abruptly and crossed over to join Desmond, pressing close enough that their bodies almost connected and touching Desmond's face with bloody hands. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have left you. Are you alright?"

Desmond stared at him disbelievingly. "Clay ... Jesus _fucking_ Christ, you killed them!"

"I know. They didn't hurt you, did they?"

"They didn't do _anything_! You ... You..."

Actually, maybe he would throw up. He tried to match up the Clay who'd kissed him last night and come in his mouth and held him afterwards, the same Clay who was now stroking his face tenderly and leaving bloody trails on his cheeks, with the Clay who had less than a minute ago been calmly turning a man's head to pulp with a length of pipe. He wondered how he had ever been convinced that Clay was better now, that he was normal and not the crazed wreck he had been in Abstergo. He was still insane, that was certain, but with a different and far more dangerous kind of insanity: one that could kill and think nothing of it.

"Grab some clothes and get dressed. I'll stash the bodies in here. I guess this guy will have more problems than just some missing underwear when he gets back."

Hating himself for listening to these instructions, Desmond got dressed in stolen clothes as well as he could manage with a leg that still felt like it was tearing itself apart from the inside. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Clay drag the Assassins' bodies into the garage and wipe the blood from his hands using the blanket they had slept under. He picked up a stray shard of skull from outside and tossed it into one of the cardboard boxes, where it landed next to a Fleetwood Mac album. Then he slid one of Desmond's arms around his shoulders and guided them both outside, finally bringing the garage door down to conceal the horrors within.

Desmond staggered a little and immediately he found a metal crutch wedged underneath his armpit. He leaned on it and tried to breathe.

"Raided a hospital. Just found it leaning in a cupboard and started using it. You'd be amazed how unwilling people are to take a crutch off of someone, no matter how suspicious they are."

Silence.

"Are you angry with me, Desmond?"

He still didn't trust himself to reply.

"Would you please say something?"

"You killed them," Desmond said at last, too tired to put any vitriol or accusation into the words.

Clay was silent for a few seconds before answering. "Would it make you feel better if we agreed that I assassinated them?"

"What...?"

"Is that more acceptable to you? What about that guard back at Abstergo? Was that murder or assassination?" Clay's words were angry, but saying them he simply sounded weary.

"That was different! He was a Templar!"

"I'm not on the side of the Assassins or the Templars, Desmond. They're all the same to me. I'm on your side, and I'll do whatever it takes to protect you." He leaned down and picked a blister pack of pills and a bottle of water from a backpack that he'd dumped nearby. "Take two of these. We should get moving."

Somewhere in Desmond's mind was the perfect argument to convince Clay that killing the two Assassins had been wrong and killing the Abstergo guard had been ... less wrong. For some reason, however, the argument was refusing to articulate itself. Desmond hesitated, then took the pills and water from Clay, who let his hand drop to his side and stared off into the distance with an unreadable expression.

When Desmond had swallowed the pills and handed them back, Clay surveyed him with as gentle an expression as he could muster. "Are you OK to walk?"

"Yeah."

"Then let's move."


	21. Chapter 21

**Introductory note**: _How about three speedy updates to compensate for the temporary hiatus? In case Chapter 19 didn't give it away, there will be a persistent threat of rude bits for the rest of the story. You have been warned._

* * *

They took a train North using another stolen credit card, and managed to cross two state lines before it got dark. For the first thirty minutes or so of the journey they sat in silence, and Desmond could feel Clay's worried glances over at him as he stared out of the window at the country rolling past, occasionally turning into ocean. He was settling things in his mind: composing internal arguments to find which side of his personality would win, recalling all his past experiences in an attempt to decide how he should be feeling. Finally, he reached a point where he was ready to talk, and knew what needed to be said.

"I'm sorry, Clay."

His friend had been reading a terrible complimentary magazine that had been on the seat, but looked up sharply. Thankfully they had their own cabin on the train ("Hell, someone else is paying, let's travel in luxury"), so there was no worry about people overhearing their conversation.

"I shouldn't have yelled at you earlier. I don't know whether I should have thanked you instead, but I guess you did save us, in your own way, and I'm not exactly in a position to judge." In a way this was dishonest; he was trying to bring resolution to something that could not be resolved, for he could not come to terms with Clay's violence, his madness, the side of his personality that shook Desmond to his core with its random emergence. What was the point of dwelling on it, though? It wasn't as though Clay could be fixed, and he was a great comfort to be around when he wasn't killing people. Desmond leaned forward and buried his face in his hands, keeping his mouth free so that he could continue speaking. "I'm not angry with you. I'm angry with our life, with my stupid fuckin' Holy Grail DNA that gets us chased wherever we go. I just want..."

Desmond looked up and found Clay contemplating him with those beautiful hard blue eyes and something twisted inside him, something that made him get up and literally drag Clay from his seat, bury a hand in his hair and claim his lips, his tongue, gasping for inconvenient breath. Needing more, he tugged none-too-gently on Clay's hair, eliciting a groan and forcing the man to tip his head back so that Desmond could bite and suck at his neck, could feel the pounding of his heart in the pulse that he massaged with his tongue, and Clay braced his hands against the top bunk bed for balance and gasped raggedly in Desmond's ear, desperately trying to return the favour but betrayed by the instinctive arching of his neck. Finally he placed a hand on Desmond's throat and forcibly pushed him away.

"Bed," he said simply.

Desmond looked at the foldout bunk and grinned. "Such as it is."

Neither of them lasted long; the need was too great. Desmond pushed Clay down and settled between his legs, continuing the assault on his mouth and throat, blindly unbuttoning his shirt and pulling the left side of the V aside so that he could bite down on a small dark nipple, grinning around it as he felt Clay buck upwards helplessly, grinding them together where it mattered.

Theirs was a conundrum of needing to remove clothes but being unwilling to sacrifice the precious seconds required for said removal. Fumbling at belts and zips between them whilst moaning at the scrape of teeth on his collarbone, Desmond managed to get them both partially out of their jeans before the friction became too much and they climaxed almost simultaneously, stomachs sliding together, faces buried against each other's shoulders so that Desmond could feel every shudder and hear every broken whimper. He finished a while after Clay did and collapsed bonelessly on top of him, vaguely worried about whether the weight of him might be uncomfortable and that the mess of his orgasm was probably spilling onto the sheets, but unable to do anything about either problem.

Clay didn't seem to mind the position and with great effort lifted his limp, shaking arms up to settle on Desmond's back, pulling him closer. They kissed languidly, open-mouthed, for a few minutes before Desmond rolled off and lay on his back, staring at the plastic ceiling of the upper bunk above them.

"Clay?"

"Mmm."

"I want you to fuck me."

There was silence, then a low chuckle that seemed directly connected to the base of Desmond's spine. "Give me a minute."

"I didn't mean right now. Hell, even _I_ need a break after that, and as most of the Western hemisphere knows, I'm an unstoppable sex machine." That earned him another laugh from Clay. "But maybe when we get to New York. I just ... I'd like it to be you. I mean, it's not a big deal, but..."

"Yes it is. Losing your virginity is always a big deal."

Desmond jabbed him half-heartedly in the ribs. "Would you stop with the virginity bullshit? I'm starting to feel like Snow fucking White over here."

"Don't blame me, you're the one who has never before felt the touch of a man..."

"Unless there's something you've been keeping from me, I definitely felt the touch of a man just now. Speaking of which..." Desmond shifted and grimaced. "I need to get changed."

"I got you some fresh clothes. T-shirt and underwear, in that bag on the left." Clay gestured vaguely but seemed disinclined towards any other movement. He stayed in place whilst Desmond gingerly climbed over him and made his way towards the bag, and only grinned when he heard an exasperated sigh and a pair of boxers landed on his chest.

"You're an asshole. Unless it's just coincidence that _all _my clothes are white."

Clay laughed heartily, chasing away any possibility that the choice might have been accidental. "White looks good with your skin tone. Don't be mad, angel."

"I swear to God, the sooner you fuck me the better. One more virginity gag and I might have to kill you before we even get around to it." Desmond stripped and took an unnecessarily long time cleaning himself up when he felt Clay's eyes on him, seemingly hypnotised by the sight of skin shifting over the musculature that had been reacquired during physiotherapy. Turning away to hide his smirk, Desmond pulled on a pair of boxers and stretched the ache out of his back and arms.

"I know what you're doing, Miles, and it's about the worst possible attempt at revenge I have ever seen."

Desmond grinned, stalked over to the bed and straddled Clay's hips, ducking his head a little due to the low ceiling. He smiled at the touch of Clay's hand on his bare stomach, and closed his eyes as the palm moved over his abdomen and up to his chest, resting over his heart for a moment before stroking down again to his navel. There was a tangible shift in the world as he concentrated on the caress, and he felt parts of his brain stirring in ways that were at once familiar and alien.

He opened his eyes again.

Clay must have felt the tension in Desmond's stomach before he saw the look of panic on his face. "Desmond, what is it? What's wrong?"

Desmond knocked his head as he scrabbled backwards out of Clay's lap, clutching his knees to his chest as his head flicked from side to side, taking in his surroundings. "This can't be happening," he insisted, squeezing his eyes tight and opening them again, to no avail.

"What can't be happening?" Clay asked, and Desmond watched the vague shape of his mouth moving within the blinding blue glare that was shining out of his skin. It was as though the world was shouting information at him, so that with the heightened vision came a curious kind of deafness.

"It's Altaïr's Eagle Vision," he managed at last. "I can't get rid of it. _Fuck_."

He rolled out of bed and went to stand by the window, in the hope that gazing into the endless landscape might make it easier to rid himself of the unwanted shift in his perception. They were slowing into a station, however, and when he looked out over the platform he saw a new colour that made him sick to his stomach.

"Come on," Desmond said, moving away from the window and pulling the rest of his clothes on hurriedly.

"What are we...?"

"There are Templars. On the platform. I can see them, they're like blood, glowing..." He opened the door and reached out blindly until Clay took hold of his hand. The pair of them stepped out into the narrow corridor and Desmond led the way towards the standard class carriages, his vision still distorted.

Clay was shaking his head as he buckled his belt. "Fuck. They must have been keeping tabs on any stolen credit cards in the Atlanta area, checking what they were used for. We should have used cash."

"Yeah right, how long would it have taken for you to steal $700 in cash? They'll know from the cost that it was a cabin, so hopefully that's all they'll check. If they're keeping tabs on that many possible leads, I doubt they're being all that thorough with each individual one."

They reached the carriage and Desmond sat down in one of the spare seats, next to a startled mother who held her baby a little tighter to her chest. Clay wisely chose another seat, further down; if the Templars were searching, they'd expect to find the two of them together. Desmond pulled the hood of his jacket up so that it covered his face, turned his head away from the aisle and feigned sleep. With any luck, the average onlooker would assume he was the child's exhausted father.

It only took around fifteen minutes for the Templars to finish searching, and the train was held at the station throughout with the doors sealed and angry passengers demanding to be released. Desmond opened his eyes, the Eagle Vision still active, and his stomach turned when he saw several red figures at the door leading to the carriage. He snapped his eyes shut again as the door opened and the figures began to move down, glancing from side to side at the seated passengers.

The Templars were close enough now that he could hear them talking in low voices.

"... Waste of time, we know they bought a cabin..."

"It won't take more than thirty minutes to check the rest of the train..."

"I know you're eager, new kid, but this is overkill. We ain't gonna find them here and the Amtrak guys are already pissed off about the delay. The Chief isn't one of us, he's going to want an explanation..."

Desmond didn't dare to open his eyes, but he guessed that the Templars were in police uniforms. They had stopped walking now and were close to him, too close...

"Fine, but if we missed them..."

"We didn't miss them. If they were here we'd have found them already. I can't believe I'm saying this, but let's go solve some goddamn crimes."

They moved back the way they came, and as they left Desmond felt another shift in his brain. He opened his eyes to find that the Eagle Vision had retreated, and that the baby whom he'd hoped would be taken for his son was in fact an extremely dark-skinned African-American child.

The doors finally opened to release the stream of complaining passengers, along with the luckless Templars, and Desmond finally looked up just as Clay arrived at his side.

"Good timing."

"Still freaked me out," Desmond said, scared to blink in case the Eagle Vision came back. He looked up at Clay, who was grimacing as though in pain. "What's the matter?"

"I've got come running down my leg."

Desmond bit his lip as he heard an outraged gasp from the mother next to him. He flashed an apologetic smile at her and dragged Clay back to their cabin so that he could change into clean clothes.

* * *

When it got dark they climbed into the narrow confines of the top bunk and Desmond pressed himself against Clay's back, one arm braced against his chest to keep him close and prevent him from rolling out with the rock of the train. Clay was warm and solid, and the presence of him soothed Desmond almost instantly into sleep.

It was probably because of their earlier conversation that he dreamed about the first time he'd lost his virginity. The details were a little muddled now and in the morning he wondered how much of the dream had been accurate and how much had been invented, but he was at least sure of the basic details.

Her name had been Sandy or Charlotte or Sarah - something along those lines. Desmond was sixteen, and had recently managed to hitch a ride in the back of her friends' van. He told her that his name was Tom Finn, an alias that he'd dreamed up back when he first started to plan his escape from the Farm.

"How old are you?" she had asked.

"Nineteen."

She had laughed at him and said, "Get outta here!" He must have looked even younger than he was, with his slightly too-long hair and wide-eyed fear of being discovered. He had recently started shaving, but more out of optimism than necessity.

She had a long dark braid of hair and was tall and slim, wearing dungarees with a CND badge on the strap. He had asked what the symbol meant and she laughed again before launching into a lecture on weapons of mass destruction and the need for worldwide nuclear disarmament, about how they were travelling to Washington for a protest outside the White House to show that goddamn George Bush that _some _people still cared about world peace, and Desmond had nodded at all this and wondered what her breasts looked like.

It happened two days later. Her friends had decided to stop and sleep in a motel, and since Desmond had no money they offered to let him sleep in the van on the condition that he didn't steal it in the night. Desmond - who didn't even know how to drive - agreed to this condition and had been trying to make a comfortable bed using only the clothes he'd brought with him when she opened the door and handed him a polystyrene cup of coffee.

He'd sipped it and asked who the guy on her T-shirt was, absurdly jealous that it might be her boyfriend. She had smiled, pleased to be asked, and told him all about Che Guevara and Cuba, and this time he'd listened with real interest, although he hadn't stopped thinking about her breasts. Then, with the same tone she'd used to talk about nuclear disarmament and Communism, she'd told him that she believed in free love and she had condoms in her pocket, and would he like to use one? "You get a choice about the sex, not about the condom," she'd added for clarification. "If we have sex, the condom is not up for discussion."

By all rights that should not have been as hot as it was, and he had kissed her as a way of reply, not really knowing what he was doing but trying not to open his mouth too much since he'd heard a girl on the Farm - younger than he was - complaining that it was gross when guys did that. The kissing seemed to work because she pushed him away and took off her clothes without embarrassment, and Desmond had stared for so long that she'd started to laugh at him.

Thanks to a brisk sex education talk that his mother had given to him last year, which Desmond had found at once fascinating and excruciating, he succeeded in putting the condom on by himself. He was grateful when Sandy/Charlotte/Sarah climbed into his lap and handled the difficult part before rolling them over so that he could thrust into her, and then they were away and he had kissed her small, pert breasts and was delighted when she gasped in response. He'd lasted for about three minutes before it all became too much for him. Thankfully she seemed to find his lack of stamina endearing and had stroked his hair for a bit afterwards, then said she was going back inside because their motel room had a TV.

Not exactly mind-blowing by anyone else's standards, but it had been an incredible thrill. Once he was alone, Desmond had sat with his back to the wall of the van, smoking a cigarette that she'd left him, and thought about how far he'd come from the stricture of the Farm: Desmond Miles, sleeping in vans and having sex with girls and smoking cigarettes with no one around to stop him. This was why he had run away, and it was absolutely worth it.

* * *

When Desmond woke up they were already in New York, about ten minutes from Penn station. He smiled, lips curving against Clay's sleeping shoulder, and closed his eyes again. He was home.


	22. Chapter 22

**Introductory note:** _By the way, in my headcanon the Desmond in this fic is most definitely the Francisco Randez version of Desmond from the first three games and not the Adam Sandler version they introduced in Revelations. In fact, all the faces in Revelations were a little bit messed up._

_I quite like Adam Sandler Desmond as well, though. I was running round Animus Island, looking for stuff to do (there isn't anything, for a miraculous construct of virtual reality programming, Animus Island is pretty boring), and discovered that Desmond makes some fairly sexual noises whenever he jumps anywhere. _

_You're going to boot Revelations up now and check, aren't you? No judgement here._

* * *

"So, are you going to give me the grand tour?"

Desmond raised an eyebrow at the question. They were rattling along on the E train, trapped in the midday press of bodies. "You've never been to New York before?"

"Never saw the appeal."

"Never saw the...?" Desmond shook his head. He probably had an unhealthy worship of the city, but it besides the Farm it was the only place he had ever called home, and certainly the only home he had ever liked.

Better still, Desmond had realised that he still _had_ a home here. The rent on his place in Brooklyn was set up on a direct debit, and he doubted that his landlord had even noticed his three-month absence. He had left his keys in his jacket, and left his jacket inside Bad Weather when he stepped out for that fateful cigarette and been abducted by Abstergo. Depending on how sentimental Tony had felt after having a bartender walk out on a shift and leave his jacket and motorcycle behind, one or both of the items might still be there.

They exited the subway and on Fifth Avenue and Desmond grinned in triumph. "Woo, it's still here!" he called over his shoulder, pointing across the street at Bad Weather.

"Is that a surprise? You haven't been gone that long."

"You wouldn't believe how quickly businesses appear and disappear in this city. Come on."

He experienced a strange headrush, stepping through the door. He'd only been gone for a few months, but so much had happened in that time that coming back to the bar felt like returning to another life. He felt older, suddenly, and wearier.

Kimberley was working the slow afternoon crowd at the bar and she looked up briefly to acknowledge the two of them, then went back to concentrating on the beer she was pouring for a second or two before her head snapped up and her mouth opened in shock. "Desmond?" she cried out in her unmistakeable Southern twang.

"In the flesh," Desmond replied with a grin, reaching over to pull the beer tap back up before the drink overflowed. Figuring he might as well do the job properly, he picked the beer up and handed it to the surly-looking drunk sitting at the bar. Kimberley flipped up the partition and launched herself at Desmond in a fierce hug, her short blonde hair tickling his nose.

As if remembering something, she released him and gave him an angry little shove in the chest. "Where in hell did you go? You left your stuff here, we thought y'all had been murdered!" She turned to glance suspiciously at Clay, who was hanging back and watching the exchange.

"Just kidnapped," Desmond replied, trying to make it sound like a joke. "Is my stuff still here?"

Kimberley was staring at him, overwhelmed and confused. "Well, yeah, it is ... But Desmond, ya gotta answer some questions! I mean, Tony was so mad..."

"Is Tony here?"

"You know he doesn't get in 'til around six. You want to wait...?"

"I can't stay here long. Where's my stuff?"

He felt a pang of sympathy for the girl as she looked at him uncertainly. She would probably catch hell for handing over his jacket and motorcycle without consulting Tony first, but he couldn't linger, not when there was the possibility that Templars or Assassins were watching the place. Reluctantly, Kimberley showed them to the storage garage where his bike was resting underneath an oily sheet, the jacket laid over the handlebars. Desmond felt a thrill of delight at seeing her again.

"Hey, beautiful. Did you miss me?" he asked, stroking a hand over the leather seat. He heard Clay give a snort of derision behind him, but was too happy to respond.

Turning back to Kimberley, he paused for a moment, regretting the trouble in her wide brown eyes. "I have to go," he said simply. "Would you tell Tony that I'm OK, and that I'm sorry for everything?"

"Of course..."

"Just Tony, alright? If anyone else comes around here asking questions, tell them you haven't seen me. Please."

Desmond could see assumptions starting to form in Kimberley's mind upon hearing those words, but at least with the guesses she was making the confusion was starting to clear from her eyes. She nodded, hesitated, then stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. "Be careful." Rocking back onto her heels, she flashed a stern look at Clay. "Take care of him, y'hear?"

The beginnings of a grin appeared at the corner of Clay's mouth. "Yes, ma'am." He looked up and locked eyes with Desmond.

The silence was broken a few seconds later by Kimberley groaning and raising her hands in defeat. "OK, much as I'd love to stand here all day and watch you two eye-fuckin' each other, I have work to do. Close the door behind you when you leave."

Clay was already sauntering over before she'd left, the grin that had begun a minute ago spreading across his face. "So, I guess we won't be taking the subway to Brooklyn?"

Desmond tossed a helmet at him. "Hop on."

* * *

This wasn't the first time that he'd shared his motorcycle with another person - in fact, Desmond had used the bike as a method of seduction more times than he cared to admit, banking on the fact that making girls cling to his waist while a powerful engine thrummed between their legs was a powerful weapon against self-control.

Of course, Clay wasted no time in turning the tables. He dug his fingers into Desmond's hips and pressed up hard against him, his fingers straying more than once and only retreating when the distraction nearly sent them both hurtling off the road. Desmond was torn between extremes of fury and arousal, and spent most of the journey trying to decide whether he would ram his tongue down Clay's throat or simply punch him when they finally got to Bed-Stuy.

He slowed the bike and turned into into the alleyway by his old building. Clay removed his helmet and leaned forward, latching onto the back of Desmond's ear with his teeth and caressing the cartilage softly with his tongue in a manner designed to chase away any residual anger and leave only dizzying lust in its place. "Thanks for the ride," he growled.

Desmond dismounted carefully, set the kickstand in place, and then turned round and shoved Clay hard in the chest. "We are going to have a conversation about road safety," he snapped.

"I look forward to it." They walked around the front of the building and Clay looked up at it. "This is where you used to live?"

"Technically I still live here."

"But don't the Templars know about this place?"

"I used the address for Bad Weather on my motorcycle license. We should be safe here."

Clay eyed a shifty-looking crowd who were watching them from the cage of a nearby basketball court. "Relatively speaking."

Being back in his old flat was even more disorienting than returning to his workplace. Desmond found himself almost surprised when his key slid into the lock, just as it had on all those early mornings when he'd staggered in from work, tossed his keys onto the sofa, shucked off his jacket and stretched the night from his muscles. He would check the fridge for any leftover takeaway and, depending on how old it was, chow down on it until weariness became too much. Up again around midday, watch some TV, then maybe go out with some friends or on a date. It hadn't been much of a life, but it had been all he'd ever wanted.

Could he return to this? Maybe not working at Bad Weather, but living in New York again, with Clay by his side and in his bed? It seemed impossible after all the insanity they had been through together: being kidnapped, living as a 12th century Assassin, falling off a roof and nearly dying. Clay was looking around at the apartment, his eyes flicking over the surfaces and taking in details until Desmond shifted uncomfortably.

"I know it's not much," he said, tossing a months-old TV guide in the trash.

"It's very you," Clay replied, and strangely it didn't sound like he was taking the piss. It was a simple observation.

Desmond leaned against the counter (the kitchen/dining area/TV room were conflated into one room and made up approximately 80% of the entire apartment), watching Clay pick up the TV remote, then put it down again without using it. If returning to the apartment after so long was strange, then watching Clay wandering about in it was positively surreal. He slid the stolen jacket from his shoulders and dropped it onto the back of a chair, and Desmond saw that the older scars on his forearms were dotted with newer wounds - ones that had obviously been made since their escape from Abstergo. A wave of ineffable sadness filled his chest and he crossed the room and, without embarrassment, slid his arms around Clay's waist and pulled him close.

"We made it," he mumbled against Clay's ear, and felt a hand come up to caress the back of his head, holding him in place.

"We're not safe yet," Clay reminded him cynically.

"But we're free. We're alone. No Templars. No Assassins. No more running, at least for now."

A silence where a breath should have been, then: "Desmond?"

"Yeah," he replied immediately, knowing the question that was being asked. He dragged his cheek against Clay's until their mouths met and he could taste Clay, inside and out, and he was ready for this, so ready.

He'd planned to manoeuvre them into the bedroom but decided that it was too far away, that he could leave that for later. He pushed Clay roughly onto the couch and climbed on top of him, feverishly thrusting his hands inside clothes and stroking the nirvana of Clay's bare skin, too eager to coordinate the removal of his shirt or jeans. In response, he felt fingers tugging insistently at the hem of his T-shirt and after a few minutes of this he extricated his hands and used them to drag the item of clothing up and over his head, leaving his torso bare and flushed.

Clay stared for a moment, then reaching out reverently to run a finger over Desmond's face before gripping his hips, holding him off. "Desmond," he said, his voice clear. "What do you want?"

"I've told you what I want."

"Where's your bedroom?"

Leaning over the hands that thwarted him at the waist, Desmond kissed along Clay's jaw. "Far. Really far away. We should stay here."

"It's that door over there, isn't it?"

"Maybe."

With a grunt of exertion, Clay rolled them both off the couch and onto the floor, pinning Desmond beneath him as he reached over and dug into his backpack for something. Not to be deterred, Desmond sat up, lifted Clay's shirt and licked a trail up his chest that ended with a gentle bite at his nipple. Clay hissed and shifted backwards, standing and offering Desmond a hand.

"We're relocating. Come on."

* * *

Clay Kaczmarek's personality was difficult to put into any kind of box. At times, it was possible to catch glimpses of the person he might have been before the Templars and the Animus had driven him half-mad, but for the most part he was possessed of a kind of slow, simmering anger that rarely seemed to surface, but manifested itself in sarcasm and tactlessness: an aura of _leave me alone_ that seemed to work upon everyone except Desmond. In bed, however, he was almost startlingly considerate: gentle and firm in turns when each was needed, and containing remarkable self-control.

Desmond was on the bed with his legs over the edge and Clay kneeling between them, kissing him slowly and testing the button on Desmond's jeans.

"Can I?" he murmured, almost shyly, for he still hadn't really seen Desmond's cock, hadn't even touched it. Desmond nodded and lifted his hips and within seconds he had joined Clay in full nudity, and was almost shocked by the intimacy of it, here, where he'd bedded many girls but no men, and had certainly never been taken in the way he was about to be.

"OK, lie back," Clay instructed, moving up and scooping a hand underneath Desmond's back to ease him down, then hovering over him for another kiss. "Do you want me to tell you what I'm going to do?"

It was a difficult choice; normally Desmond found surprise to be a turn on, but in this instance he wanted to at least be able to prepare himself mentally. He was a little nervous, not that he'd ever admit it. "Yeah, tell me."

Clay pressed down so that their chests, stomachs and cocks slid together, kissed Desmond on the mouth and then whispered in his ear as he slowly ground them together in a motion that left Desmond whimpering for mercy. "I'm going to get you ready, you understand? Using my fingers. It might hurt a little and you're going to find it difficult, so I'll use my mouth on you at the same time to help you relax. If you feel like you're about to come, tap me on the shoulder. We don't want that just yet, do we?"

Desmond didn't reply to this at first, but simply lay there, open-mouthed, unable to credit what he was hearing. Clay was speaking in calm, matter-of-fact tones that in no way appeared to be intentionally seductive, and were all the more arousing for it. He seemed to take the stunned silence as consent, for he slid back down to the floor and kneeled between Desmond's legs, pushing him down again when he tried to get a better look at what was happening. There was a slight tearing sound as Clay opened a packet of lubricant, then the wet sound of him spreading it onto his hand, and he was kissing Desmond gently on the inside of his thigh, resting his cheek there where the muscles stood out, and this was actually happening, God, this was going to happen _now_.

Desmond hissed in a breath and swore at the first invasion, the words devolving into a wordless cry as he felt the first touch of Clay's mouth on him, enveloping him, and the strong fingers of his spare hand clamping down on Desmond's hip to hold him still. It was too much sensation all at once: suction, invasion, control, damp, muscle, scent, _Jesus_! Desmond clapped one hand and then the other over his mouth, embarrassed by the sounds he was making.

Then the mouth on his cock was gone and there was slightly less to deal with, and he could focus on the strangeness of the finger invading his body. It didn't hurt, but it was weird as hell, and Desmond once again felt an urge to sit up and look at what was going on.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Clay teased, sitting up a little and moving his hand from Desmond's hip to his stomach.

Had he been in a less vulnerable condition, Desmond would have made a more sarcastic retort. As it was he surprised himself by saying, "More."

Oh, Clay's mouth was back again, and it was a pleasant distraction, but not enough that Desmond failed to notice...

"Ah! Fuck, ow!" He bit his lip and pressed his head back onto the mattress. There it was: the pain, the burn that had been promised. It wasn't unbearable, just uncomfortable, and were it not for Clay's mouth teasing his frenulum maddeningly he'd most likely have gone soft from the panic. There was a hand on his sternum, restraining him gently, and a thumb massaging his diaphragm as though Clay was measuring his pain by the way it vibrated through his abdomen.

It took much longer this time, but eventually he realised that the pain had subsided and asked for more, immediately dreading it, like an acrophobic after agreeing to be strapped into a rollercoaster on a whim. A third finger pressed into him and he didn't hold back this time, swearing loudly and creatively enough to make a sailor blush.

Carefully keeping his fingers sheathed, Clay climbed onto the bed and cupped the back of Desmond's head, lifting him until they were face-to-face and kissing the lips that met his but were too contorted to respond in kind.

"How you doing, Miles?" he murmured, pulling back to employ his usual searching gaze on Desmond's sweat-soaked face.

Desmond laughed at the question despite himself, forcing himself to open his eyes and look back at Clay. "Fine, thanks, and you?"

"Did I mention that this might hurt?"

"Yes you did. Very helpful of you."

"No problem. Here..." Clay took Desmond's hand and wrapped it around himself, sighing at the contact. "Touch me. It might take your mind off the pain."

"I think ... you might have an ulterior motive," Desmond accused jaggedly, but did as suggested, creating a fist around Clay and stroking him in tight, fluid jerks, watching the response as though hypnotised. He winced when he felt the digits inside him begin to move in time with his pumps, but forced himself to continue, and soon found the discomfort abating a little.

He definitely hadn't been this considerate the first time he'd taken someone's virginity. Admittedly the girl had only told him afterwards, when he'd seen the blood on the sheets and freaked out, but now he regretted the way he had forced himself inside her and taken her cries of pain for pleasure. Clay had been more than patient, but Desmond didn't want to put this off any longer.

"Now."

"Now?"

"Yeah. How should we...?"

"It'll be easiest if you lie on your stomach, or maybe get up on your elbows and knees."

Desmond considered that image and found himself taking an immediate disliking to it. "Can't we do it, um, missionary?"

"Face-to-face? It'll hurt more."

"I'm a _man,_ Kaczmarek, I fear no pain."

Clay laughed at that and removed his fingers, triggering a whimper of relief from Desmond, who found himself guided backwards so that he was lying on the bed properly. Clay grabbed a pillow and instructed Desmond to place it underneath his hips, then retreated briefly to grab something from the floor.

His hips raised slightly and a sense of extreme exposure and vulnerability overwhelming him, Desmond sat up on his elbows and watched Clay kneeling upright on the end of the bed, nude and scarred and impossibly beautiful, tearing open a condom packet with his teeth before rolling the contents onto himself with a curiously sombre expression. When it was done, he looked up at Desmond and the two of them contemplated each other for a moment, not touching. As though his body had just remembered what was about to happen, Desmond experienced an odd swooping sensation in the pit of his stomach and didn't know whether it was arousal or terror.

"OK?" Clay asked, moving between Desmond's legs, leaning over and triggering another wave of panic and excitement inside him.

"Yeah. How should I ... What do I do with my legs?"

"Bring them up, like this..."

With guidance, Desmond gripped Clay's ribcage between his knees and rested his heels on that hot, solid back, sliding a little in the sweat pooled there, all the while thinking _oh fuck, oh fuck, we're really doing this_.

"Breathe, Desmond, it's alright, just breathe." Clay was kissing his eyelids and forehead and hairline and stroking his bicep soothingly whilst reaching between them awkwardly with his other hand to line them up, and Desmond could feel the press of him and then, and then...

He managed to stay silent through the first, infinitely long thrust, breath neither leaving or entering his body, every fibre of his being clenched because _oh_, it fucking _hurt_. Then he exhaled in a long, broken cry of, "Stop, _stop_, don't move, oh _Christ_, Clay!"

They were locked as one, foreheads pressing together hard enough to bruise, and Clay was kissing him and holding perfectly still and Desmond loved him for it, but that didn't take away the agony of penetration. It felt like he was being torn apart. This shouldn't have bothered him, for he had become so accustomed to pain during his training on the Farm and the past few months of recovery from the fall that he should surely be able to handle it by now. But this pain was different, not in extremity but in intimacy, and he had no tools or defence to cope with it. He clawed at Clay's back with his fingernails and begged for mercy, begged him not to move, and Clay said _yes, yes, I won't, just breathe, Desmond, breathe_.

He breathed, and minutes went by, and after it had been too long he began to feel embarrassed and guilty, for Clay's limbs were shaking with the effort of keeping still and - incredibly - Desmond could actually feel the organ twitching inside him, demanding thrust and friction.

"I'm sorry," he managed at last, and Clay stroked his thigh soothingly.

"Don't be sorry, you're fine. You want to stop?"

"No, I just need a bit more time." He managed to open his eyes and found Clay's hard grey-blue gaze only inches away, staring into him with an uncharacteristic openness. One hand stayed on his thigh, massaging the muscle there, and the other came up to rub against his cheek.

Desmond didn't know how long they stayed like that, but then Clay's hips shifted minutely and suddenly there was pleasure, acute and shocking, and Desmond gasped.

"Sorry, sorry," Clay said hurriedly, misinterpreting the gasp and struggling to freeze his position again.

"No, that felt..."

Desmond was unable to articulate the sensation, but Clay looked at him searchingly, then smiled and repeated the motion, brushing up against that spot once more and forcing a groan from Desmond. "Prostate. Yeah, I can feel it."

"It doesn't hurt as much now. You can move, if you want to."

"OK, let me just..." Clay pulled out until he was just barely inside, then tore open another sachet of lubricant and divided the contents between himself and Desmond before settling back into position and guiding Desmond's legs up so that they rested on his back once more. "I'm going to start moving. If you need me to stop again, just ask."

But Desmond never asked. He breathed deep and marvelled at the rhythm that Clay embarked upon, still wincing at the occasional twinge of pain but too fascinated by it all to be particularly bothered. He was only half-hard and doubted that he could come like this, when he was still so unused to it all, but every now and then he would feel a spark of stimulation against his prostate and it would force a cry or a curse from him, and Clay would grow excited and grip his hips and pound into him a little faster...

And then, suddenly, it stopped.

"Shit! Fuck, Desmond, don't move..." Clay's fingers were painfully tight on his hips, holding him still.

"Isn't that my line?" Desmond asked breathlessly, trying to angle his head enough to see Clay's face, which was buried in his shoulder. "What happened? Did the condom break or something..."

"No, I..." The rest of the sentence was muffled, but Desmond managed a rough translation, and grinned.

"Were you about to come?"

Clay groaned and Desmond felt him twitch. "Do me a favour. For the next couple of minutes, don't use the C word. In fact, it's probably better if you don't talk at all."

Desmond rocked his hips deliberately. "But dialogue is an important part of a healthy relationship. I think we should definitely talk about you coming inside me."

"Nnng!"

Biting back a temptation to laugh, Desmond gently lifted Clay's head so that they were eye-to-eye. "Go on," he said, serious now. "I want you to." He hadn't really had a chance to watch Clay come yet, having been so absorbed with his own climaxes, and he was incredibly curious about how it would look.

Clay looked tempted, yet unconvinced. "But you're not..."

"I don't think I'll be able to come like this, not on the first go, and I want to watch you. Come on." He rocked his hips again, and the sting of it was immediately soothed by the look on Clay's face. There were no words of assent, but Clay began to move again, his arms braced on the mattress to hold him up so that Desmond could watch him. It took less than a minute before his eyes opened wide in a kind of shock and his jaw dropped and...

"Oh Jesus! Desmond, fuck, _now_, I'm..." He fell silent, neither inhaling or exhaling, his eyes shut again but his mouth still open and suddenly Desmond could feel it, the unbelievably surreal _pulsing_ sensation of it as Clay buried himself deep and stayed there. It was beautiful and painful all at once and he felt himself grow fully hard as Clay's stomach heaved with gasps, his voice coming back in a series of pants and whimpers as he scrabbled helplessly at Desmond's side. Realising it was over, Desmond let his aching legs drop down and Clay pulled out of him and sat back on his heels, still shuddering all over.

While the condom was being dealt with, Desmond stared up at the ceiling and contemplated the oddly post-coital feeling running through him. He hadn't come yet, but he had reached a kind of climax with Clay and it had been amazing.

All the same, he tensed when he felt the touch of fingers in his cleft once more and looked up with a slight panic, worried that Clay might have decided it was time for round two already. Instead though, he simply checked his fingers and then the sheets before making a noise of approval and lying down next to Desmond on the sweat-soaked bed.

"You're not bleeding. That's something, at least. You'll probably hurt like hell in the morning, though."

"Yeah, I'm starting to get used to that."

Clay was obviously exhausted, but all the same he reached down and gripped Desmond gently, finding him hard and close. Desmond sighed in pleasure and turned his head so that he could look at Clay, who lifted his eyes as well. It was strange and unbelievably intense to have someone touch him like this with all their focus on his face.

Desmond was naturally inclined towards long, drawn-out orgasms and this time was no exception. Between his first gasp of warning and the moment when he finally went limp, a full forty seconds must have passed. Rather than deteriorating in intensity, the spasms would start slow and build to a crescendo until the final contraction was almost painful, and he was left sobbing, trying to figure out if his eyes were closed or if he'd simply gone temporarily blind.

When he had partially recovered and let his head roll to the side, he found that Clay was staring at him. "Holy shit."

"What?" Desmond managed to wheeze in reponse, sitting up and trying to blink the ringing from his ears.

"Is it always like that?"

"You've seen me come before."

"I guess I wasn't paying proper attention. Jesus, that was a sight and half."

Desmond nodded and attempted to surreptitiously wipe the moisture from his eyes. He caught sight of Clay's face in his peripheral vision and scowled. "What are you smirking at?"

"Fucking hell. I've pledged my heart to a crymaxer." Clay tried and failed to dodge the punch that landed on his arm.

"I am _not _a fucking crymaxer."

"That would be a lot more convincing if you weren't covered in tears and jizz."

"My eyes are watering from the ... oh, piss off."

The bed reeked of sex, but neither one of them could be bothered to change the sheets. Before they fell asleep, Desmond found himself stroking his hand down Clay's forearm, carefully avoiding the fresh, raw patches that marred it, and an instinctive sense for trouble stirred in his stomach and disturbed his sleep that night. At one point he woke up and felt Clay's fingers tracing the scar on his back where his kidney had been removed, and was troubled once more.

_No_, he thought in sleepy irrationality. _Let there not be scars tonight. Let there not be pain in the morning. Why does time have to ruin everything?_

He offered up a vague prayer, but the next day Abstergo came for him anyway.


	23. Chapter 23

**Introductory note:** _It seems we're coming to the end of this tale, and things are on something of a high note. Desmond and Clay have escaped, sexy times have happened, and nobody's stolen the TV. Smiles all round!_

_..._

_Let me fix that for you._

* * *

Desmond's face stared back at him with serious brown eyes that looked as though they were searching for him. His skin was coffee-toned save for the pale scar that cut through his mouth, and there was a slight darkness under his eyes that came from too many nights on the run and afflicted with pain or worry. Without looking away, he lifted his hand and scratched the fingers in the hair on the back of his head, then brought the same hand around to rub against his jaw.

Clay appeared behind him and leaned against the doorpost, smirking. "So, is your face still there?"

Their eyes met in the mirror, and Desmond grinned a little sheepishly. "Looks like it."

"Why does everyone do the looking-in-the-mirror thing when they lose their virginity. Hell, even _I _did it, and I like to consider myself a non-conformist."

"This has nothing to do with having sex," Desmond lied defensively. "I just like looking in the mirror because I'm a handsome bastard."

He leaned back against the sink and folded his arms while Clay remained in the doorway. "I lost it in a frat house," he volunteered. "So the philophising-Narcissus moment afterwards got kind of ruined since their bathroom mirror had stains on it from bodily fluids that I don't even want to think about it."

"What about the second time you lost it? _Was _there a second time?" Desmond had to ask, not only because he was curious to find out more about Clay's sexuality, but also because he was still adjusting to the idea that there were different kinds of virginity, and he'd just lost one of them at the ripe old age of 25.

Clay shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm gay, I've lost the only kind of virginity I'm ever going to. Does your shower work?"

"Yeah, you just gotta be kind to it first, flatter it a bit." He turned and began fiddling with the controls, the pipes groaning and clunking in response until finally the shower head began to erratically spurt bursts of water that eventually settled into a continuous stream. As he tried to find the delicate balance between scalding hot and freezing cold, Desmond heard Clay getting undressed behind him and had to struggle to retain his concentration.

Finally he got the shower working reasonably well and turned back. "That'll be good for about twenty minutes, you just have to ... oh God!"

Clay, who'd been digging around for a towel in the cupboard under the sink, straightened up at hearing Desmond's tone. "What's wrong?"

"Your back," was all Desmond could manage.

Clay turned looked over his shoulder, inspecting himself in the mirror, and made a noise of surprise. The pale skin of his upper back was scored repeatedly with ugly and obvious red scratch marks. Mercifully there had been no bleeding, since his short fingernails hadn't quite broken the surface of the skin, but they were awful to look at. Still in a haze of shock, Desmond recalled being so overwhelmed by the mixture of pain and joy and fear and pleasure that he'd clawed at the man taking him, scratching at him without any thought for what damage he might be doing.

He remembered that night outside the storage garage - before anything had really happened between the two of them - and as though watching it with a third eye he saw himself leaning against the wall and observing Clay's struggle with the padlock, or rather, watching the beautiful lines of his back shifting under the thin shroud of his rain-soaked T-shirt and battling with the desire to touch and possess it.

Well, he'd certainly done that.

"Fuck. I'm sorry." Desmond couldn't think of anything else to say. He was horrified and disgusted with himself. He'd _never_ done that to a girl, never physically hurt anyone during sex, and now of all people he'd hurt Clay. Clay, who had already been hurt far too much.

Contrastingly, Clay himself didn't seem at all bothered. He laughed and prodded one of the lines on his back with an index finger, at the same time exposing Desmond to some of the much uglier markings on his arm. "Wow, I'm pretty sure that's the universal sign of a good night." He looked up at Desmond and some of the levity drained from his expression. "Oh crap. You're panicking."

"I'm not panicking, I just ... _Damn_. I can't believe that I did that ... I never wanted to..." He couldn't articulate an apology that would do justice to how he felt, and suddenly he was embarrassed and angered by the look on his own face. It didn't exactly help matters that Clay was obviously trying to fight down his own amusement.

"Oh, Desmond ... Look, these will be gone in a few days, it's really not a big deal. Besides, you'll feel a lot less apologetic the next time you have to sit down."

Admittedly just walking to the bathroom had been an uncomfortable experience, but Desmond wouldn't let himself become distracted. "Do they hurt?"

"Not really. You're not going to start crying again, are you?"

"I know what you're doing. You're trying to piss me off so that I forget all about it."

"Is it working?"

"Little bit."

Given the fickle nature of the hot water in Desmond's apartment, they decided to share the shower, taking it in turns to dip their heads under the spray of water to wet their hair and then rinse the soap from it. While Clay performed the latter operation, Desmond held him gently by the shoulders and kissed the marks that he had made the previous night, soothing them with his lips and tongue as a kind of apology. Clay laughed at that, but went quiet when he felt the scars and marks on his forearm being likewise caressed by Desmond's mouth. He permitted this intimacy for only a handful of seconds before shifting his arms away and pulling Desmond into a tight embrace.

Once they'd dried off and he'd left Clay to dress, Desmond boiled up water for coffee and opened the fridge, somehow forgetting the effect that three months of neglect would naturally have had on its contents. Reeling backwards, he slammed the door shut forcefully before the smell of mouldering takeaway could escape into the apartment.

"Milk's off," he called unnecessarily.

One of the many blessings of being home again was being able to wear his own clothes as opposed to those provided by Abstergo or the Assassins, and he'd joyfully dug out his favourite T-shirt, jeans and American Eagle sneakers. Desmond looked up as Clay wandered out of the bedroom and saw that his friend had also been digging through his clothes, and was wearing a long-sleeved black button-down shirt usually reserved for nights at Bad Weather.

"Are you wearing my underwear too?" Desmond asked accusingly.

He got a sly grin in response. "Calvin Klein, Desmond? You're a man of style and taste."

"Speaking of taste, there's some yoghurt in the fridge that was milk once upon a time."

"Is that your roundabout way of telling me to go out for groceries?"

"I'll go. I know my way around the neighbourhood better."

It was a gloriously domestic conversation, and should have given Desmond hope that they could do this long-term: argue over laundry and whose turn it was to buy the milk; have incredible, intense sex and then share showers afterwards. Yet there was a small cloud of grief hanging over him that he could neither identify nor eradicate, and as he reached the door, Desmond hesitated. He turned back, grabbed Clay by the wrist and pulled him in for a hungry, frightened kiss.

Clay was obviously taken aback, but he responded to the touch, parting his lips slightly and sliding his tongue against Desmond's. He tasted like mint because, of course, he'd have used Desmond's toothbrush as well: another thing that they shared, were comfortable with sharing, as though they were the same person.

"Please still be here when I get back," Desmond begged, breaking away, wondering if _that_ was what he was afraid of.

"Of course."

_I love you, Clay_. But he couldn't say it, not with this knot of fear in his stomach, not with doubt battering at the windows and this unknown threat creeping its awareness up Desmond's spine.

* * *

The grocery was family-owned and he'd visited it almost every week since moving in several years ago. The Korean man behind the counter was friendly as he'd always been, but gave no indication that he remembered Desmond or had acknowledged his absence. He gave the exact same greeting to the person behind him in the line.

"Morning! What can I get for you today?"

The answer came as Desmond had one hand on the door. "Just gum, thanks."

"One dollar, miss, and have a nice day."

"Thanks." He heard her hand over the bill and approach him, but still didn't turn around. He realised he was still frozen when she said, "Could you get the door?"

_So this is it_, he thought. It was almost a relief.

He pulled the door open and allowed Lucy Stillman to exit first, watching her nonchalantly open the gum and slip a piece into her mouth. She offered him the pack but he simply turned his head.

"Suit yourself. It's good to see you again, Desmond."

"Can we skip the bullshit pleasantries and get to the threats, Lucy?"

He'd expected her to be taken aback, but instead she just looked him over sadly before saying. "I'd like to buy you coffee, and talk to you."

"And if I don't listen?"

"Clay Kaczmarek will die."

Well, there it was. He pictured Clay, waiting in the apartment. Would he be sitting and watching television, with Abstergo agents waiting outside for Lucy's order? Or would they already have him, kneeling on the floor with a gun barrel pointing at the back of his head. He was extraneous now, of no use to the Templars, and the simplest refusal would end with him dead at the hand of Desmond's complacence.

"I guess we're getting coffee, then."

Rather appropriately, she chose a place that belonged to a masssive conglomerate chain of coffee shops and restaurants: an economic giant. She bought Desmond an Americano that he had no intention of touching, and a frothy latte for herself. Wrapping her chilled fingers around it, she stared at him across the table.

"I guess you picked up one thing from your ancestor. You're great at running," she said conversationally.

"Got away from you, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did. Your father was pretty distraught."

Desmond was caught off-guard by the comment. "What do you know about my father?"

Lucy smiled at him with one side of her mouth and didn't answer, but he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and looked down to see the ring finger of her left hand crooked inwards, so that it appeared to be missing from the lower knuckle upwards. Desmond slowly began to comprehend the meaning of this, and when it dawned on him he looked up sharply, startled.

"You're ... an Assassin."

"Yes."

"But you were working for-"

"Abstergo, yes, undercover. Clay never told you any of this?"

"Clay _knew_?"

"Of course. We were partners, I was the one who got him into the program."

They'd been in Abstergo together for almost a month, on the run and living with the Assassins for two more, and Clay had kept this from him? Why?

"Why would he...?"

"People are a mixed bag of motivations. You need to come back, Desmond."

Presumably there was some connection between the two statements that Lucy had just made, but if so it was invisible to Desmond. She looked at him coolly, pink lips pursed as she blew on her coffee to cool it down, and Desmond thought about how he had once liked her, perhaps even seen her as his one ally, the one positive that came with being kidnapped and forced to do Abstergo's bidding. Perhaps if there'd been no Clay, she might have taken his place.

But there _had _been Clay, and Lucy had just threatened his life.

"Right, I need to come back or you'll have your people murder Clay. Fuckin' Assassins. Guess I shouldn't be surprised."

Lucy raised an eyebrow at him infuriatingly. "When did I threaten to have Clay killed?"

The mug in Desmond's hand seemed to creak audibly under the tightened pressure of his fingers. "Just now, you said that..."

"I said that Clay Kaczmarek would die if you didn't listen to me. What I didn't mention is that I'll die as well, as will you, and your mother and father, and every other man, woman and child on the planet." Lucy was talking faster now, her composure slightly broken as she looked at Desmond pleadingly. "Our world is in danger, Desmond, and you're the only one who can _sit down, please, just listen_!"

Desmond had stood up abruptly, nearly knocking his chair over, and the barista was very carefully not looking at the two of them. "You told me ... You made me believe I was about to lose the man I ... fuck you, Lucy!"

He made for the door, but Lucy stood up and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him back. "Would you have come with me otherwise? Five minutes, Desmond, you _need_ to hear this."

Emotions were battering him from every side, but among all the words that Lucy had been throwing at him, Desmond was able to pick out the most important: Clay might die if he didn't listen. What was every other man, woman and child on the planet to him if _Clay_ was in danger? Gritting his teeth, he sat back down in his chair and said, "Talk."

* * *

It was past noon by the time he returned, and Clay was pacing in front of the television but not watching. As the door opened and he looked up, his face was a mask of frustration and relief, and he strode over and shook Desmond roughly by the shoulders, his gravelly voice cutting through the still, cool air of the apartment.

"What the hell, Miles, did you go all the way to New Jersey to pick up some goddamn milk?"

His grip loosened as he studied the expression on Desmond's face. He stood back and watched as the groceries were set down wordlessly on the counter, and Desmond placed the milk in the fridge. The food that had been quietly moulding in there had been removed, presumably something that Clay had found to occupy himself with during the hours of loneliness. Once the milk was stowed away, Desmond set his palms down on the counter that divided the kitchen and seating area, and took a deep breath before finally looking up at Clay, who took a step closer to him.

"Something happened."

Desmond didn't reply to this.

"What is it? Your eyes are ... have you been...?"

Before he could pursue the line of inquiry further, Clay's arms and mouth were full of Desmond, who had crossed the divide between them in a few strides and was kissing him ravenously, flickers of desire coruscating through him and out of him with an infectious intensity. "Now," he murmured against Clay's lips. "Need you. Now. Please."

"Are you...?"

"_Please_."

Clay allowed himself to be dragged into the bedroom and watched as Desmond stripped quickly, efficiently, hating the necessity of the separation and rapidly revealing fragment after fragment of structured, tanned skin, flecked with occasional scars. He returned immediately after disposing of the last piece of clothing, already furiously erect, and helped Clay out of the remainder of his clothes before dragging him onto the bed.

After the minimal preparation and assurances that _yes_, he was ready, _yes_, he needed this, Desmond guided Clay up until he was sitting with his back to the headboard and straddled his hips. Their mouths parted only when Desmond would arch his back, and then Clay would simply spend a few moments exploring the column of his neck.

Desmond climaxed first, with Clay still inside him, and a broken cry escaped him as the strangeness and intensity of it temporarily eclipsed the pain, which returned only when Clay gripped his waist and began thrusting upwards sharply, desperately, pushing until he hit the edge and spun over it. He must have felt Desmond's tears on his shoulder, but didn't comment on them, merely stroking the brown, glistening, shaking shoulder upon which his head rested until Desmond slid backwards and pulled Clay with him.

They lay on the sheets and Desmond stared at the ceiling silently.

"What is it?" Clay asked of Desmond's skin, still tucked slightly inside him.

"I have to go back."


	24. Chapter 24

**Introductory note:**_ This is the penultimate chapter, which I wanted to get out tonight for a particular reason. The final chapter will not be uploaded for at least two weeks due to a summer holiday sans laptop. Apologies, enjoy this chapter in the meantime, and I hope the ending will be worth the wait._

* * *

Silence. Not even breath. Then...

"No, Desmond. _No_."

Desmond closed his eyes as Clay exited him, moved away from him, left him.

"You _promised_ me, you son of a bitch! How did they get to you? What did they say?"

"The very worst thing they could have told me. The truth."

_Lucy stared at him across the table, silent now that the damage had been done._

_"So the world is going to end, and I'm the only one who can stop it?"_

_"That's the sum of it, yes. I wish I could tell you that this is only guesswork, Desmond, that it's merely one of many possible interpretations. It's not. Every clue, every artefact we've been able to dig up says the same. We need you, or it's all over."_

_Desmond's coffee had gone cold and untouched, and he stared into it for a long time before speaking. "I just wanted to be left alone. I just wanted to live and work and be in love. Saving the world should have been someone else's job."_

_Lucy sighed and reached across the table to touch his hand. "I understand that this is..."_

_"I'll do it."_

_She was effectively stopped mid-sentence and stared for a moment as if not quite believing him. "You will?"_

_"I can be an asshole sometimes, but I'm not so fucking selfish that I'll sacrifice the entire planet just so I can have some peace of mind. I'll do it. Whatever it takes."_

Silence filled the room, cold and oppressive. Desmond was sitting with his legs over the edge of the bed, weary and vulnerable, while Clay stared at him.

"The world's going to end?"

"Yes."

"But she could be..."

"She wasn't lying."

Looking at Clay's face was painful: he had the air of a man being physically torn apart. "Desmond, going back in that machine, digging up all those clues, with a deadline like that ... It will drive you insane! It could _kill _you!"

"Then I'll die."

And with that, Clay was no longer standing apart but kneeling in front of him, stroking the slack expression of his face, squeezing his shoulders as though trying to produce a reaction, any reaction. "Why are you doing this? Why?"

"Billions of lives, Clay. The entire planet. Fuck destiny. Fuck rebellion and independence. Fuck what my father says and fuck what I want. If I don't do this, I'll be the very worst, the most evil criminal our civilization has ever known. I won't be the person I want to be and I won't be the man you fell in love with." He looked up and managed a small, sad smile. "Life sucks, huh?"

Clay opened his mouth and then closed it again, and it was possible to see him building up the walls around his sense of grief and betrayal, hiding them behind anger and sarcasm. "And what am I supposed to do while you go off saving the world?"

"Your parents, they're still alive." Desmond didn't look directly at him, instead staring straight ahead, at the wall. "You should go and be with them, in case ... In case I don't pull it off. We'll make sure the Templars know I'm with the Assassins, and that way they won't come after you. You have your freedom now, Clay, so make what you want of it."

God, the _rage _coming off him. Desmond could feel it, building with every word he spoke, but knew that he had to put that option first, had to endorse it before...

"Then there's the other option."

"Oh, is there? Go on, Desmond, what's my other fucking option. I've already thought of several alternatives."

He was clenching his fists, and with his nakedness the marks on him were exposed, carrying with them a suggestion of deeper wounds and harsher cuts, of Clay tearing into himself until he hit veins. He would never say it, but he didn't need to for Desmond to understand that Clay always held his second way out close to his chest.

"The other option is that you come with me."

"Oh really? You think the Assassins will take me back after they find those bodies?"

"That's ... taken care of."

_"Before I come back," Desmond was drinking his Americano now, cold as it was, to alleviate the dryness in his throat. He winced at the bad taste in his mouth. "There's something you should know."_

_Lucy already knew; he could see it in the inquisitive arch of her eyebrow._

_"The morning after we escaped, we were holed up in this garage. Clay had gone to get supplies, and I was alone. Two Assassins came..."_

_"The McMurphy brothers."_

_They eyed each other carefully across the table, and Desmond nodded. He hadn't known their names, and it probably didn't matter now._

_"I killed them."_

_A look of genuine surprise crossed Lucy's face at that statement, and she stared at him uncertainly. "You...?"_

_"Killed them, yes. They were trying to take me back, and I imagined Clay returning and finding me gone, finding the place empty. There was a pipe on the ground outside. I pretended to go along with them, and when their backs were turned I stabbed one of them through the chest, broke the other one's head in. Not the most graceful assassination, I'll grant you, but it got the job done." He smiled bitterly. "You still want me, knowing what I've done?"_

_"I'm afraid we don't have much choice."_

"The Assassins will take you back. But that is not the easy option, Clay. If you want a shot at happiness and freedom you need to go now, because I can't give you that." God _damn _it, this was not the time to start crying. He needed to be strong when he said this. Desmond swallowed hard, angrily, before continuing. "You're right. I'm not going to go easy on myself this time. I'm going to have to spend a lot of time in the Animus, as much as it takes, and it's going to mess me up. I ... I can't guarantee I'll still be Desmond, when all this is done, I might not even be al-"

He didn't get to finish the sentence. Clay covered his mouth, not with his lips but with his hand, and stared at him wildly. "No. _No_. I can help you, I can keep you grounded like you did for me, remember, back at Abstergo? If I'm there, you might ... You might not..."

"I can't ask that of you."

"Fuck that. Fuck _you_, Desmond Miles, you said it right just now: fuck what _you _want." He reached down and gripped Desmond's hand fiercely in his own. "If you're going to insist on this insane martyr thing then I'll be there."

Desmond laughed damply, unable to help himself. "Through sane and insane?"

"Through crazy and stupid."

"Life and d-"

"Shut the hell up right now."

"It's a _possibility_, Clay! The prophesies seem to indicate I'm some kind of cypher, an object that can be used to save the world. They don't say anything about what I'm supposed to do after that, and some of them indicate that whatever happens is going to use me up somehow..."

He stopped.

Clay was crying.

_Clay _was _crying_.

Desmond stared at him, at his bowed head shaking shoulders, at the tears dripping heavily onto his leg, and realised he had no words of comfort, nothing to ease this burden.

"Why you?" he gasped out, between sobs. "Why not your father? Why not Lucy Stillman?"

Desmond shrugged. "Luck of the Irish?"

"You're not even fucking Irish."

"Yeah, that's the problem."

"Don't make jokes about this, Desmond, God _damn_."

"Sorry, joking is my default mode."

Clay didn't respond to that, so Desmond eased him up and onto the bed, then lay half on top of him, stroking his side and dropping occasional kisses onto his shoulder and hair.

"I'll come with you," Clay said at last.

It should have been a happy proclamation, but Desmond found his chest starting to ache with sadness again. "It's going to hurt you, watching me. Haven't you been hurt enough?"

"I'm stronger than you think. If there's even the possibility that it'll help you, I'll be by your side for every second of it."

Now was the time, the time to say it, for Clay had earned everything including the truth with that statement. "Clay, I..."

"I know."

"Well let me _say _it, asshole."

"I'm sorry, go ahead."

"No, you've ruined the moment now."

"Doesn't matter, I know anyway. Love you too."


	25. Chapter 25

**Day 1**

Desmond was sitting on the Animus, running his fingers softly along the leather of the armrest, when his father entered the room. He didn't look up, and eventually it was William who spoke first.

"I'd like to..."

"Go ahead." The leather creaked in protest under the sudden pressure of fingernails. "Thank me so that you can fool yourself into thinking I came back because of you."

Bill laughed despite himself. "Three words into a conversation and you're already trying to turn it into an argument?"

"Fine." Desmond slid from his sitting position into a standing one. "I guess Lucy already passed on my terms. You'll accept them, no arguments?"

They had been few, but firm. Desmond was at liberty to leave whenever he wished, with an unspoken understanding that he never would. He would write his own Animus session schedule, with an unspoken understanding that the hours would be long and punishing. He would share a room with Clay Kaczmarek - there was no misunderstanding that. And his mother would be informed of what was going on.

Desmond was right, of course; Bill wouldn't argue with these terms. Elizabeth had been told (he winced internally when he remembered the conversation), but Bill could see her already: her defiance in Desmond's eyes and her determination in the set of his shoulders, the left one of which Bill reached out to lay a placating hand upon. Desmond shrugged him away irritably and Bill felt a tightness in his chest. He let the rejected hand drop back to his side.

**Day 3**

Save for the shift in hue from brown to grey that had occurred in his hair, William Miles seemed almost to not have aged at all in the decade since Desmond's escape. When Elizabeth Miles entered the Altanta Den, she looked as though she had taken Bill's extra years upon her own frame. She looked so _tired_. Surely she had never looked this tired when he was young?

"Mom," he said, stepping forward and pulling her into his arms, afraid to squeeze too hard lest he hurt her. He was taller than her now.

"Oh, Desmond." Her voice was as he remembered it: warm and affectionate, without angr or remonstration. Such a contrast to his father's distance. She pushed at him gently until he was held only in the embrace of her slender hands at the end of unbent arms. "Let me look at you."

She did so, hungrily, eyes flicking over his face as if she couldn't take in the details fast enough. Desmond suddenly felt self-conscious about the scar on his mouth - acquired in one of his less proud moments - and the undeniably matured line of his jaw and cheekbones; he had more or less robbed her of the chance to watch her son grow from a boy into a man. He considered apologising and begging forgiveness, or at least showing her a little emotion, but his old stubbornness held him back.

"I got a haircut," he joked.

"You're so handsome." She smiled even wider, before adding with a slightly stern tone. "And brave, which is more important."

Same old Mom, always sticking to her principles. They sat down and talked, Desmond giving her a sketch of the ten years of his life she had missed whilst leaving out the slightly more unsavory details, inserting more shelter and warm meals than he head, in reality, experienced in the early days and overstating his financial standing with the instinct of liberated sons everywhere.

**Day 5**

The HUD slid over his eyes.

He hoped that they would attribute the small smile that crossed his face to something other than pleasure.

When he opened his eyes again, he was home.

He wouldn't remember thinking this later on.

**Day 24**

Desmond spend his hours outside of the Animus learning how to be in love.

It was at once an active and a passive endeavour; he made no conscious effort to do it, but nonetheless found himself dedicating most of his waking hours to the task with boundless energy. Waking hours, of course, not including the hours spent in the machine.

Much of it was physical. He developed a hunger for Clay: a desire to touch, taste and know every inch of him. Desmond came to know the geometry of Clay's shoulderblades, the contours of his knees, the hard shields of his pectoral muscles. He observed with fascination, analysing with scientific application, the different ways in which Clay responded to contact: a tongue laving softly over one patch of skin producing a different effect to the soft pad of a thumb pressing in the same spot. For once, the hypersensitivity that the Animus induced in him began to work in his favour and as the hours he spent in the machine racked up, the greater and more intense were his encounters with Clay.

"Holy cow," Clay laughed one night as the two of them lay still lazily entwined and bathed in sweat, and Desmond stirred once more and began pressing his mouth to various pulse points, impatiently trying to get them both ready for another round. "You're fucking insatiable."

"Easy to feel hungry at a feast," was Desmond's mumbled, half-drunken retort. He gently plucked at the skin of Clay's throat, taking it between his teeth.

A half-exhausted, half-aroused, all-intrigued huff of breath escaped Clay's mouth. "I'm serious. You fuck me like there's no tomorrow."

Desmond didn't comment on that.

They had sex almost daily. Desmond sought, through sex, to get closer to Clay, finally understanding what the man had meant when he spoke about wanting to climb inside his skin if only to be closer to him. Failing that, Desmond took Clay inside himself and shed his inhibitions as Clay filled him and fucked him and gasped against his skin, both of them articulating their pleasure in words and phrases so filthy that they would laugh at them the next day. Desmond stroked, teased, tasted and frotted every inch of Clay: never tiring of the sounds he would make as he came or the slide of foreign semen over his own skin, down his stomach, in his mouth. The walls of the Den were thick, but after the first three days of their return Shaun Hastings had curtly requested that either their room or his be switched to one less adjacent.

It still wasn't enough. Desmond wanted to _know _Clay, to learn him body and mind. They talked endlessly and he learned that Clay was damaged, often cold, cynical, quick to anger but slow to reveal it. He had a general dislike for people and a skill for antagonism that he exercised liberally. He cradled his pain, sadness, and regret into a tight ball and protected with hard arms with the same ferocity that he defended Desmond.

Desmond learned all this and realised that he wanted more time: more hours in the day, more days in the week, even as the Animus stole half of them away from him.

On the other hand, he didn't have to afraid of losing Clay, because he knew that Clay would lose him first.

**Day 25**

Even through the Animus, even with the veil of time between Altaïr and himself, Desmond felt the power of the Apple of Eden radiating through his palm.

Rebecca dragged her gaze away from the monitor and shared a tense glance with Bill as a soft 'oh' escaped Desmond's lips and the right hand flexed a little on the armrest of the Animus.

Unaware of this, Desmond stared at the object in his ancestor's hand and felt the first signs of a sensation that would later become as familiar as breathing: a giving and a taking away of energy; the opening of a conduit to unlimited resources of power that would drain him each time he used it.

Desmond exited the Animus early and staggered to his room without stopping for an evening meal. He collapsed onto the bed and was asleep in minutes. A few hours later he was aware, without waking, of the mattress next to him dipping, and then an arm encircling him and soft puffs of breath on his neck.

It was the last Animus session he spent in Altaïr's memories, moving on the next day to an Italian called Ezio Auditore. It was a welcome break, to spend time in an ancestor who so closely resembled Desmond's own reckless, youthful self, but he surprised himself by feeling small pangs of sadness at leaving behind the stoic, serious Altaïr.

**Day 48**

Desmond shivered as Clay drew a hand down his spine, the canyon of flesh that dipped down when he lay on his stomach. Fingers ghosted over the scar that marked the removal of his kidney, and Desmond thought about disappearing. He pictured fragments of Desmond falling away: pieces of his body, pieces of his mind, pieces of his time. By now he was spending more than half of each day inside the Animus, and the effects were hitting him hard.

Before this moment of stillness, Desmond and Clay had been caught fiercely in the throes of desire, scooping each other out of their clothes even as they pawed frantically at whatever skin they could find, and Desmond had tipped his head back and felt teeth and tongue on his throat and he had cried out...

Clay had hit him.

Not hard, or vicious, but a smart slap to the cheek. Desmond's mind and body were still reeling when Clay grabbed him by the shoulders and began shaking him, his eyes wide and terrified.

"Hey! Look at me, come on!"

Desmond managed to obey the command, staring at Clay with a mix of confusion and indignation. "Chill out, I'm looking! What-?"

"Do you know what you were doing? _Do you_?"

"Having a damn good time, which you've interrupted for..."

Clay cursed and shook his head, looking down and taking a few deep breaths. "You were speaking Italian, Desmond."

_Oh. Shit. _Desmond attempted a cocky grin. "It's a very sexy language, I thought you might..."

"You didn't know you were doing it."

Clay had let go of Desmond's shoulders. There was distance between them now.

"I've been here too. I know that this is how it starts."

There was no point in denying it now. Perhaps there had been no point in hiding any of the lapses that had occurred in the past few weeks: episodes where Desmond would jerk himself away from Ezio Auditore only to find that he was not in the Animus at all. It had started, alright. It had started quite a while ago. He looked at Clay helplessly.

"You knew that this was..."

"Yeah. Yeah, I did."

"I told you it would be better if..."

"You did. Well done, you were right."

Clay's walls were up and his pain and wretchedness were held tight in a cocoon of hard, cold anger. Desmond knew it was pointless to try and talk to him like this, and a sudden wave of fatigue crashed over him. He sighed and stripped off the last of his clothes before getting into bed, laying on his stomach and hoping that when he woke up, he would still be himself.

**Day 100**

It was the CCTV footage that absolved him - at least in the eyes of Bill Miles and the other leaders. Not one of them liked Clay Kaczmarek, but they hadn't risen so high in the Assassin ranks by allowing their emotions to rule their better judgment. He was brought in to give his own account, then once more to be notified of his acquittal. He stalked from the room without a response.

Other Assassins were not so forgiving. In recognition of the Assassins' policy of openness, the tape had been made available to any who wished to see it, and not all who watched were satisfied with what they saw. Alright, the actions were clear and appeared damning, but since the camera had not been recording sound, only two people remained alive who had heard the dialogue first hand. One of those people had long since ceased to be a reliable witness.

Here is the conversation that the CCTV camera missed.

"I should have known. I should have fucking known."

"Clay ... Thank God you're here, you have to help me, I found Desmond..."

"Save it, I heard what you were saying to him."

"_Cosa sta succedendo_?"

"Let him go."

A pause.

"You should come with us. I know you don't have any loyalty to the Assassins, and you _shouldn't_, Clay."

Clay Kaczmarek laughed. It was an unpleasant sound.

"The Assassins don't understand the Animus! They don't have the resources that the Templars have. Here they've got Desmond cooped up in that dirty basement at all hours of the day, and look at him!"

"_Lasciami andare! Federido! Padre!_"

"And Abstergo are going to ... what? Help him? Reverse the effects?"

"Yes, they..."

"Like they did with me?"

Silence. A click.

"Put that down, Clay."

"Fuck you, Lucy."

"There's no point waving it around when we both know you're not going t-"

The conversation ended.

**Day 114**

It took a long time to find Clay, but eventually a young Assassin told Desmond - with downcast eyes - that he had seen the man up on the roof. Desmond nodded and headed up there, unwilling to prolong the conversation. Most of the Assassins in the Den had known and liked the McMurphy brothers and their feelings towards having their killer not only admitted back into the order but treated with privilege were pretty much to be expected. Desmond was happy to bear their hatred in Clay's place, for Clay did not possess the shield of protection that Desmond's DNA ensured.

The skylight was already open, sunshine pouring in, and Desmond leaped up nimbly, catching the edge of it by his fingertips and pulling himself up and out onto the roof. Sure enough, Clay was sitting on the tiles and reading a book on the Italian Renaissance. Desmond looked at the cover, grinning when he realised it had obviously been stolen from Shaun, and nudged Clay with his foot before sitting down next to him.

"Researching me?"

Clay looked over at him and Desmond tensed a little as he bore the quizzical look that he'd been habitually getting of late, as people tried to ascertain whether it was Desmond speaking, or one of his ancestors.

At last, he saw the lines of Clay's back relax a little. "You finished your session early. It's only lunchtime."

"I know. You hungry?"

Clay persisted. "Did something happen? You've never taken an afternoon off before."

"Which means I've earned a break by now. It's beautiful weather, how about we eat outside?"

He stood up and held out a hand, which Clay looked at warily before taking it and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. Desmond grinned wickedly at him and, instead of dropping through the skylight, swung delicately over the edge of the roof and began to descend the building by using window ledges and guttering as handholds, knowing that Clay would follow.

They drank beer on the grass outside the Den, other Assassins dissipating from the area one by one until they were alone. Desmond could feel that Clay was not quite relaxed, always on the lookout for signs of the Bleeding Effect which tended to eclipse a great deal of Desmond's time outside the Animus. He could feel it the threat of it nudging at him even now, but he fought it down.

After lunch they did something unusual: they left the compound.

Clay's eyes widened mockingly when Desmond clambered onto the fence and sat atop it with one eyebrow cocked challengingly. "Desmond Miles, I hope you're not thinking of going _outside_."

"Gonna rat on me?"

The fence rocked a little as Clay ran up and vaulted over it easily, dragging Desmond down the other side by his shirttails. They landed together in a heap on the sidewalk and spent a good minute or so disentangling themselves slowly and leisurely.

They didn't do much with their freedom, beyond running and jumping over the rooftops of the city and terrifying the smugly roosting pigeons. Desmond was swift and the movements came to him like second nature; this, after all, was how he was accustomed to travelling inside the Animus. In the evening they went into a bar and watched a hockey match, wisely choosing to cheer for the Atlanta Thrashers, and ate cheeseburgers and fries as a welcome alternatives to the health food usually available in the Den.

As they walked back, Desmond slipped his hand gently into Clay's and enjoyed the warmth of his fingers. It was such an odd gesture for them, and should have felt self-conscious. Instead it just felt right.

Perfect.

It was dark by the time they reached their shared room. Desmond saw a wrinkle of trouble on Clay's forehead and tried to kiss it away, reaching up to unbutton his own shirt. When it was hanging open, he took that pale hand in his and laid on his throat so that Clay could feel the pulse of his heartbeat in the warm vein there.

"I love you," he murmured, and Clay surely felt the thrum of vibration in his throat as well. It was the first time he had actually said the words, instead of simply implying them. "Remember that. Remember this."

He felt his mistake in the stiffening of Clay's fingers and in the sudden recoil of his body. Clay had been leaning in for a kiss but pulled back and stared into Desmond's face with a ruthless, unstoppable suspicion, before stepping backwards with an expression of horror.

"Oh my God."

"What is it?" Desmond asked, affecting an unconvincing expression of puzzlement.

"I don't believe it. You absolute ... You conniving motherfucker!"

"Can you fill me in? Because I have no idea what you're-"

"You, you..." Clay obviously couldn't stand the taste of the words in his mouth. "Taking a half-day ... The run ... The beer ... The bar..."

He had seen. He had realised. Desmond mentally cursed Clay's intelligence. He looked back helplessly, not able to deny it any more.

Clay's lip curled. "You were saying goodbye."

Desmond stood for a moment, tensed, and then sighed in defeat and sat down on the edge of the bed, his shoulders slumped. "I hate goodbyes. There's no such thing as a good goodbye; they're never happy memories. I just wanted to give you one really good memory of me ... In case."

"Don't say it."

"I don't need to say it, you know what I mean. But you can't guess how close I am to losing myself, Clay. I can barely remember who I am any more. When I'm in the Animus, it doesn't even register that I'm a third party. I become Ezio, there's no divide, no awareness, no..." He took a deep shuddering breath and, feeling the tears of panic creeping into his eyes, hastily buried his face in his hands.

"I'm fucking terrified," he admitted at last. "I think I'm dying, Clay. I only get a few hours a day at most when I'm really myself, and every day it's a few minutes less. Up here..." He tapped his temple. "... I'm dying. Any day now I could stop waking up as Desmond, and I wanted..."

He couldn't continue. He'd fucked up. Clay's arms were around him, strong now, not shaking, but he knew that this night would always be painful to look back on.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled into the material of Clay's T-shirt. "Some good memory this is turning out to be."

"Moron. All my memories of you are good memories."

**Day 168**

When he was a very small boy, and when she was still alive, Ratonhnhaké:ton's mother had told him to always pay attention to his dreams.

"But I don't always remember them!" he had protested.

"You should make more effort to remember them. Some spirits can only speak to you in your dreams, and they are usually the ones with the most important lessons to teach."

He had followed her advice and always made an effort, in the tense moments after waking, to recall what he had dreamt and wrap it in a ball of memory that it might not be forgotten.

The spirits that visited him in his sleep had the most important lessons to teach. If only he knew what this spirit was trying to teach him.

Ratonhnhaké:ton - now no longer a child, and calling himself by the English name Connor Kenway - looked warily at the spirit as the two of them sat cross-legged in a dream land that was somewhere between a strange, humble, interior dwelling and the wilds of the forests in which he hunted in waking hours. The spirit was fair-haired and blue-eyed, but certainly not in an angelic way, and spoke in riddles.

The dream had begun with waking in a strange room: ethereal lights and thin, brightly coloured ropes connected to metal boxes. Clouded figures had guided him gently by the arm and brought him up stairs and along corridors. The dream felt lucid, but he had complied with their guidance in the hopes that they might lead him to some understanding.

"Is there something you need to tell me?" he asked the spirit. They always conversed in English, one of the many things that puzzled Connor in these dreams.

The spirit simply looked at him for a moment or two. Then he said a name, the name he always said.

"Why do you call me that?"

The spirit told Connor that he loved him. This had happened before.

"I don't understand."

Lines around the spirit's mouth tightened. "Some days, that used to be enough to bring you back."

"Back from where?"

"Jesus Christ."

Connor's head spun. Christianity? Perhaps this wasn't a spirit. These dreams were too random to mean anything. Why did they bother him so much?

The spirit looked angry now. He said, "You are not Connor Kenway."

Was this a message about needing to return to his roots, a warning about becoming too anglicised?

"You are not Ratonhnhaké:ton."

He pronounced the name perfectly.

"Your name is Desmond Miles."

Connor's head hurt. He closed his eyes and lay down in the soft grass. After a few moments, he felt the spirit lie down beside him. Though Connor was not aware of it, it had been three weeks since he last remembered his true identity.

He slept, and the journey continued.

**Day 169**

Shaun Hastings stood in the doorway, opening and closing his mouth mutely as he tried to find the right words and wondered why he, of all people, had been given this job.

Clay was sitting on the bed. It was 8pm. According to the tattered schedule on the wall, he and Desmond should have been eating dinner together.

"Tell me," he commanded huskily.

Shaun clenched the muscles in his jaw before speaking. "He's in a coma."

When he was alone, Clay put his fist through the window and fell asleep with glass shards still stuck in his hand.

**Now**

"There!"

Bill Miles' fists are clenched in anticipation as he leans over the monitor, Rebecca and Shaun at his side as they watch Connor Kenway finally facing Those Who Came Before. It has taken months for Desmond's mind to unlock this memory - though of course, things sped up quite a bit once he started spending 24 hours a day inside the Animus.

This should be a triumphant moment for the Assassins. They are about the save the world, after all, or at least find the key to doing so. But Rebecca isn't giving her customary catcalls of celebration, and Shaun simply looks exhausted, dark circles under his eyes testament to all the hours he hasn't spend sleeping. Only Bill looks thoroughly excited by the moment, but even so there is an edge to his joy: he bares too many teeth with his smile, and his eyes are a little too wide.

They all look at the monitor these days, because it's easier than looking at Desmond. He's lying not too far away, connected to the Animus with tubes snaking into him and delivering everything he needs to keep his heart beating and his brain working.

Someone is not looking at the monitor, though. Fingers gently turn Desmond's hand over so that it rests palm-upwards on the leather, then trail up his arm and over the tribal tattoo on his forearm, over the dark blue veins beneath his skin.

If Bill, or the others, were to look up from their monitor they would see Clay's turned back, the hard frame of his shoulders, the blond hair that just barely grazes the collar of his shirt - perhaps a small slice of his face as he lifts his head slowly. They would not be able to see his eyes, which he hides from them, not interested in having them even in his peripheral vision. Clay does not care what is on the monitor. He doesn't care about sleeping, or eating, or anything that is not in this room, in front of him, so still but still breathing and fighting.

Clay will be there when Desmond wakes up. Or he will die waiting.

**END**


End file.
